Possible conflict of interest?

While I agree that Dick Hardt would probably do an excellent job as
Customer Relations, he is also inextricably linked to ActiveState Tool
Corp.  

My fear is that Dick, as the "official" Customer Relations contact - and
therefore ActiveState, would be given an unwritten endorsement as the
'official' (although not truly so) Perl Support Company.  This would
essentially give ActiveState an unfair competitive advantage over other
support and consultant groups when it comes to attracting new clientele
and retaining current clients.

I've no bones to pick with either Dick or ActiveState, I'm simply
looking out for other commercial entities long-term well being.

What I might suggest as a good solution is to appoint a neutral party as
the Customer Relations person - whereby companies such as ActiveState
and other support/consultant groups can filter their client's requests
and ideas through to the development team.

Then again, it was decision of the closed-door group, so I may well be
wasting ASCII here.

--a-mused