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Steven Sinofsky on Windows 7 disclosure principles: respect and responsibility

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If you've wondered why not much has been officially said about Windows 7, a blog on CNet posted today where Steven Sinofsky discusses his principles of deliberate disclosure.

These two excerpts had the most resonance for me

Respect

I think that we're just focused--the No. 1 goal we're focused on is really the responsibility that we feel, and the respect that we have for all of our customers and partners, and making sure that what we share with them is really accurate and actionable, and that we are focused, like I keep saying, promise and deliver.

Responsibility 

The team feels this tremendous responsibility to working with IHVs and ISVs and OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), because they're running businesses, they have their own business challenges, their own business goals, their own aspirations, and when we speak about what we might do, they will take it seriously. So, we appreciate that and we respect that, and it's a great benefit. But if we're not accurate or the information we provide causes them to do one thing, and then we change our mind, that doesn't bring the ecosystem forward. A big set of challenges that we learned...is making sure that the information we provide legitimately reflects the promises that we're making to ourselves and to the team as a product.

As a big fan of modern superhero movies, Sinofsky's comments evoked this memorable movie line "With great power comes great responsibility".

Comments

  • Anonymous
    May 27, 2008
    Oh noooo!  He's at it again.  Responsibility, all right, fine, but please someone tell him about the virtues of openness! This kind of "keep it secret until it's done" is already turning the relations with web developers into a complete mess (see the comments on the IE blog; it was tense before, now it's getting worse, full of anger and mistrust). All right, you can't go around making announcements and retraction all the time, but there is a place for saying "we're working on this, there is only 50% chances it'll be ready in time for release, feedback is welcome".  People who see no news will often assume the worse, and whatever the outcome, it makes Microsoft look overbearing. Vaporware is no good, but closed doors are no better.  You can do better than this!