14 DAY TRIAL // A Community Technology Preview build of Windows Home Server was leaked recently by one of the testers involved in the development of the product. The CTP code was posted without Microsoft's authorization to an IT Blog shortly after the Windows Home Server team had made available a new preview version. The only indication that pointed to the tester responsible for breaching Microsoft's non-disclosure agreement was the user-name of the person that provided the code, identified only as Richard.
After the news broke, reports emerged claiming that Microsoft was leaning on the Windows Home server testers to identify the source of the leak. According to the media reports, Microsoft had taken tough measures, such as excluding all the Richards from the Most Valuable Professionals list from the Windows Home server Program. "For right now, you have no access to the beta until I can find the Richard who posted the WHS (Windows Home Server) CTP on this site. I will work with the Connect Admin team to determine which one of you is the real culprit of this leak," allegedly said an email authored by Kevin Beares, the Windows Home Server community lead at Microsoft.
Yesterday, Charlie Kindel, Product Unit Manager, Windows Server Incubation - Quattro - Windows Home Server disputed the fact that Microsoft had gunned for the MVPs involved in the WHS beta 2 testing.
"Some news media inaccurately implicated Microsoft MVPs as the source of the disclosure. As I think it is well known, we are big fans of the MVPs, and we're happy to clarify that no MVPs were involved in this breach. We wanted to clear that up because it's really unfair to the MVP program and the MVPs themselves," Kindel stated.