One year, the CSM was stuck in that room with no AC for 8 hrs a day with a particularly sweaty CSM member who insisted on wearing wifebeaters and sitting with his hands behind his head… and no deodorant.
Also, keep in mind that whatever you pay for anything you want to buy… multiply that by 3-5x and you’re looking at what that week costs them in terms of ‘not in the meeting room’ expenses. And in order to have that privilege of paying too much for everything, and enduring a week of stinky armpits… they get to give up 2 weeks of their personal/vacation time every year. In Europe, that’s one thing. In the US, where maybe they only have two or three weeks? Yeah, that can be a real sacrifice.
No, it doesn’t. If I’m right about how it played out, then it’s unlikely Brisc actually violated the NDA. Again, pay attention to the wording of the dev blog:
Notice what they don’t say? They don’t say he’s violated the Non-Disclosure Agreement. They imply it, yes, but they don’t say it outright. And there’s some wiggle-room in that. Here’s an example:
Before the actual corporation that was behind it was dissolved, INN used NDAs to protect the company from accidental releases of financials and business-practice information. Totally normal stuff there, btw, nothing nefarious. Now, if someone had told me, while I was under NDA, something about the company’s financials, that would’ve been covered. If, on the other hand, someone else who was under NDA with me, but didn’t actually have any knowledge I didn’t possess, had offered some speculation on something during a meeting that wasn’t confirmed, denied, or otherwise commented on, that speculation could be seen as ‘confidential’. It’s not covered by the NDA, but it’s said during the course of private discussions within the company.
So if that’s the sort of thing we’re talking about: Brisc saying something about matters discussed at the summit without actually getting into any of the legit NDA’d info CCP provides… then that’s not actually a violation. Which would explain why nothing was done about it at the Summit—remember, this happened in Iceland, and almost certainly happened in a way the CSM and CCP were aware of more or less right away.
Another way Brisc could have done something that would seem like a breach of trust, but not actually be a violation of the NDA, would be if he was getting feedback on something from someone. Given the edit I did above, I’m going to continue to use Pando in our hypothetical:
The CSM comes into the summit knowing what issues they’re looking to address. During a meeting, Brisc’s bouncing ideas for something off of Pando. Without thinking about it, one of these exchanges includes Brisc saying ‘well, what about if we tried X?’ because X came up, it’s related, and he doesn’t personally know if it’s a good idea. He doesn’t tell Pando ‘Sort suggested X’ or even that the CSM is looking at X, he just asks how Pando feels about X. There’s a legitimate case to be made there that the other CSM would feel that’s out of line, even if it’s not a direct violation. After all, he’s at the Summit. Everyone knows he’s there. So it’s not exactly a stretch to think ‘why’s Brisc asking me about X?’
Neither one of those is ‘special treatment’. They are, in fact, ‘enforce the actual policy’. More, as the blog linked upthread from Mossyblog indicates, in most industry focus groups like this, intent matters. If it’s a little slip, made with the intent of doing the job better, it’s not something you actually want to come down on like a ton of bricks. You just nod, say ‘ok, be more careful’, and keep going. That’s how the system’s supposed to work.
