Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010 are Soooo hot!  It’s really exciting for bloggers and those on the cutting edge to dig in and share what they learn.  So much so that there’s been some concern and confusion around the topic.

I had the opportunity to visit with a few SharePoint TPM team members (like @davidpae ) last week to get some clarification on the topic of the latest milestone and find out what is ok and what’s not ok to talk about.  I was really confused after seeing a number of tweets and blogs with people seemingly spilling their guts.  What’s ok? What’s Not!?? None of us want to hurt anybody else.  We simply want to share our passion, and this latest milestone with information coming from so many channels we’re all pretty confused unless you’ve gotten the word from the mouth.  You don’t have to take this for gospel, but I found this information helpful and you might too.

Office 2010

• The Office 2010 Technical Preview program has been distributed quite widely including copies to all attendees of WPC and many who registered and requested to be part of the program
• No longer under confidentiality agreement (No more NDA for Office, but bits are limited to those approved --- See details below)
• You can still sign up to be considered for Technical Preview Program! (And you’re likely to get in)

SharePoint 2010

• Still in TAP, Still NDA except for specifically revealed info during one of the PDC keynotes, Channel 9 interview video, WPC Elop keynote (well done Takeshi!), Arpan’s Preso at WPC, System info on SharePoint blog, SP2 detail, Tom’s SharePoint Roadmap preso at Teched, the 2010 Sneak Peak videos and other info on http://sharepoint.microsoft.com!
• Limited bits TAP, MVPs, and other special NDA programs
• TAP beta bits provided to those in NDA

Conclusion

The Office marketing folks have shared the bits very broadly and NDA is over, the SharePoint marketing folks are more than ever managing the disclosure of information of SharePoint Server and would prefer people to view the sneak peak videos for the latest information and plan to attend the SharePoint Conference in Vegas in October. “This year’s conference will be looking towards the future with a broad array of deep content centered on the next version of SharePoint, SharePoint 2010”

Update

Quoted from the Office 2010 Technical Preview MSConnect site

The Office 2010 clients have been publicly disclosed and are no longer under a confidentiality obligation, excluding Project and the Microsoft Office Web Apps.

However, please do not blog about any server-specific features and capabilities. It is ok to talk in general about the things that SharePoint powers in Office Client: like co-authoring, slideshow broadcast, etc. And it is ok to talk about SharePoint as the infrastructure that the Microsoft Office Web Apps run on.  But please do not disclose new server features or Office Web Apps features at this time.  To familiarize yourself with the specific things that we are disclosing about SharePoint, please visit their site: http://sharepoint.microsoft.com.

You are free to discuss the new SharePoint features with the other TAP participants and in the TAP newsgroups. The SharePoint Team considers this information confidential and only to be discussed in your newsgroups, not with the general public or any other early adopter groups.

Please remember that the builds you have received are for your use only. Please do not share these builds.

Emphasis added by me.

What we learn from the update quote above…

1) Office 2010 TP is no longer under confidentiality NDA, BUT you CAN NOT share the TP bits! (You may still be approved at Office2010theMovie.com)

2) Office Web Apps, and Project are still under NDA

3) Server features and details are still NDA except those things that are specifically disclosed on http://sharepoint.microsoft.com

4) SharePoint is a separate NDA.  SharePoint team takes this NDA very seriously and detail should only be discussed in TAP newsgroups.  Deeper disclosure to happen at SharePoint Conference. (According to text on http://sharepoint.microsoft.com and  http://www.mssharepointconference.com)

On a side note, I had to ask someone specifically about the SDK.  While public, the SDK and the protocol docs fit into the bucket of information that should be kept in general while avoid going into the deeper details on SharePoint 2010.

While the SharePoint team can’t control individual bloggers, especially those not under any NDA, now you at least know the a bit more around the disclosure plan and what they care about, so as to avoid the wrath of the Bil Simser Sheriff  of the SharePoint Police (as an example) which may assume you should know this because you’ve read every word of the NDA and the updates.  (LOL Tongue in cheek.) No one wants to end up in Bil Simser jail, believe me :)