After today’s CDT conference call, the gang here at QNX got to talking about how interesting these calls can be. Apparently, the CDT has something special going with how open we are.

The topic we were discussing was my mention of our plans with Momentics and CDT 3.1.2 and CDT 4.0. I did it just to let the community know that if I’m doing something weird, it’s because I’m trying to get the CDT 3.1.2 into the next Momentics maintenance release and to set expectations on when we’d be trying to integrate our custom bits with CDT 4.0 to provide feedback on the new frameworks.

What I had forgotten was that in this highly competative industry, this is usually a no-no. Mentioning product plans could definitely cause a slap on the wrists. Product plans are high quality ammunition that the marketing teams use against each other. Not that I aspire to such tactics, mind you.

But with the CDT and even the DSDP, this hasn’t really been a concern. We often drop hints on what we’re doing commercially. It all comes back to “When is you problem my problem“. If you at least know about my problem, you might make some effort to help me. But if I’m keeping my intentions secret, there is no trust, and I can’t see how you can have any hope of co-operation from the community.

In the end, we concluded that the CDT was a pretty cool project to be a part of. There are a lot of projects at Eclipse now, and not all of them have realized the benefits that an open culture can bring them and their customers. And it’s not just getting people to help you with your problems, either. It’s just cool to be in touch with the rest of the industry and know what’s going on out there.