Hi Tim - great question. I can't answer towards how many people were actually interested in that bit of functionality (and to be fair, the 'prying eyes' comment in the post by Steve was actually from me.) I've grown fond of transparency, and am trying personally to practice it more myself, and attempt to help others embrace it.

That being said, what I can answer is the 'why' it was done, when to be sure there are bigger pieces of functionality this group is pushing towards. It's pretty innocuous, really. We've recently had 2 new-hires to the Apps Team Collaboration Group development team, and I was prioritizing for this release, I found a couple of items on our 'running list' that had some merit in terms of getting these guys' feet wet. The 'hide membership' option was one of them. So that being said, I wouldn't read much into that particular piece of functionality being included in this release.

As to your other point "I would have expected improved search, knowledge management, or even single sign-in to be more in demand." - Agreed. Search is the BIG piece coming in 7.0 (along with hopefully some other 'huzzah' pieces). It's coming - and soon.

A quick aside - we have SSO. There's improvements to be made for sure, especially as you navigate from hub to hub you should be recognized as a logged in user from the other hub. That is currently being prioritized. If you have some thoughts on the subject, please, create a conversation in the Apps Team Interest Group, or reply here.

Thanks

Mike Roeder

We have nGen Collaboration customers who want and need this feature. We will always have features that may or may not be as relevant to nGenera for internal use, but may be popular or desired by our customers. No doubt there are other features that will be added that will be in more demand, and Steve E. and the team are open to input on those, although they already have a great, prioritized feature list under development (Steve E. - maybe you can share that).

I wish we weren't being pushed in this "closed" direction, but that's the reality we face with early customers, as SteveP points out.

On the other hand, IMO this is a transitional period.  A time when enterprises understand and incorporate transparency into their operations.  If and when we clear this phase, our collaborative products - which have always embraced internal and external openness - should be well positioned to serve those enterprises.