It has just occurred to me that the Harvey Birdman Rule [1] may have a
bug in failing to explicitly address presumptively-private email
conversations. The relevant part of the Rule currently says:
Except in extraordinary cases, private telephone calls, private
teleconferences and private in-person meetings shall not be used
to discuss *substantive* development of this project. Should
such private communications nevertheless occur, participants in
such communications are expected to publish summaries of any
relevant discussions in a suitable public forum.
I am thinking of adding "private email discussions" (or rewording this
plank of the Rule to clearly cover such discussions). This is in the
spirit of another plank of the Rule:
No private mailing lists (including but not limited to those
governed by the so-called Chatham House Rule) will be used by
this project. Public archiving of such mailing lists is strongly
encouraged; however, archives are not mandatory and partial
archiving is permitted.
- RF
[1] See
https://gitorious.org/copyleft-next/copyleft-next/blobs/master/CONTRIBUTI...