Disavowal #Delphi #borcon2004

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that Borland had a new product coming out. Suppose they had programmers blogging about some of its features. Suppose that they went so far as to have a convention where they talked about this product at length, talking about everything to do with this product except for release dates, product names, and pricing/bundling. Suppose that they encouraged the community to blog about the new product.

Now suppose that Borland went on to give beta CDs to all the conference attendees.

(I'm not saying any of this is real, mind you. Nor am I confirming or denying the existence of this alleged new product.)

One would presume, if this situation were to unfold, that Borland's intent would be to build buzz about this new product. To build awareness and enthusiasm about the product, and even to get a grassroots marketing effort underway.

Now suppose that those beta CDs, while having a very high-quality installer (way better than I would have expected for an early beta) and loads of good stuff on them, had one little glitch. Suppose that they still had the same license agreement as Borland had used for prior, nondisclosure-protected betas. Suppose that anyone who installed the software had to agree, as part of the license, not to talk about the product's features. Suppose, further, that anyone who installed the software had to agree to not even acknowledge the product's existence.

(You might wonder, in this case, whether I would honor my journalistic integrity by refusing the license terms and continuing to blog about the product, or whether I would give in and go for the cool new toy. You might wonder.)

Remember, I'm not confirming or denying any of this, because as far as I know, Borland isn't releasing any new version of Delphi. And as far as I know, I was in some sort of sleep-deprival-induced haze when I wrote all those posts about that thing called "Diamondback". I don't know what this Diamondback thing is.

If all of this hypothetical scenario were to happen, of course, one might assume that I would try to track down John Kaster or Michael Swindell and see if I could get a license addendum in writing, lifting the "don't talk about its features" and "don't acknowledge its existence" clauses. However, until that hypothetical addendum is forthcoming, all of my prior posts about BorCon are (temporarily, I hope) hereby disavowed.