In fact, every rule is being broken right now, somewhere inside of our favorite organizations.

Somewhere project team members are designing in the hallway instead of on a mailing list.

A team leader is wondering if they really need to go through the trouble of getting community input on their work.

Someone in a sales organization is failing to show customers the value of being involved in the design and development of the software core to running the customer's business.

For example, there is a common practice of having two mailing lists for open projects. One is an internal list that too often gets used for development discussions before bringing them in to the open. The other is the public discussion and development list.

Similarly, when dealing with ISV partners, the partner team makes tools, content, and collaborates all on a back-channel.

The problem is, community members either know or can feel there is work happening before conversations get to the public list.