@FIRST_LIGHT

So "it is perfectly reasonable and expected to discuss how best to launch Drupal 7" - unless you happen to dislike the commercial tone and practices adopted by the Association. In that case you are "ignorant" and should just shut up.

"FYI, I do not work for Acquia."

Fine, but it's irrelevant. The discussion is about the PR activities of the Drupal Association, not of Acquia. I was under the impression that these 2 are separate entities. I have no problem with commercial organizations, as long as they declare themselves as such. If Aquia and the other main consultancies wish to have an outlet that is focused on "product launches" and promotes Drupal for the business sector, fine. But they should not use the DA for this purpose. The DA should remain representative of the community and concern itself with community efforts.

I'm not aware of the Apache foundation employing professional PR consultants. Firefox is very different from Drupal as there aren't that many businesses offering Firefox-based commercial software.

A better example would be Linux and that's where the Drupal community should look for best practices. Even though Red Hat and the other distributors could legitimately argue that selling Linux to corporate America is good for Linux as a whole, for some reason they are not using the funds of Linux user organizations to finance these messages.