HN user
"We weren't asking them to sign an NDA"
Huh? We didn't require those discussions to be closed up in an NDA. We were just trying to do right by our partner, who wanted to negotiate the EFF / OpenWireless endorsement, neither of which they seemed to keen to give, so we walked away.
I can't mention BigCo's name, they definitely wouldn't appreciate it and the deal would be off the table now anyway.
Other info: We asked to keep our discussions confidential. We weren't asking them to sign an NDA, we explicitly mentioned that their word would have been enough. It's pretty simple, they weren't willing to discuss it confidentially, so we let it drop after about 9 emails.
It's true it was a snubbing, but I'm not upset about it. It is however somewhat ironic to read this call for help after we proactively contacted the EFF with just such an offer of help.
A lesson I learned was - you can admire what an organization stands for, but not always the way that organization is run. It also may be an ineffective organization. I guess these comments could hold for quite a few charitable organizations.
Uh, no thanks EFF. We were working on this idea, we approached you - all we wanted was a little endorsement from you, and our large company partner was willing to open license a slew of patents, RPI style. What we got back was from the EFF was a bunch of nerd arrogance and essentially this: We are too busy reading the news about the Snowden affair (which was new at the time) to talk with you. A month or two later we facepalmed reading a post from another EFF staffer about the importance of open patents...