Keeping open source software out of boardroom discussions isn't necessarily a bad thing, of course. I have this built-in aversion to marketing types, some of whom seem to define truth only by sales figures. Keeping a healthy distance between the more, um, aggressive marketing specialists and source code will probably result in better code. When code is king, bugs can be acknowledged, and patched, openly. New features can be added when they're both needed and ready for prime time.
Betas remain in the bottle until properly fermented.
At the same time, many marketing folks are keenly, and rightly, aware of their clients' real-world concerns. Things like firm shipping dates and tested reliability do make a difference in large production environments. When the suits start to show up at the Open Source conference, then we'll at least be assured that the most conservative members of the business establishment take our wares seriously enough to trust them with their shareholders' money. The lone humor deficit among the Perl big-wigs appears to belong to the taciturn Gurusamy Sarathy, though after hearing him speak a couple times I'm of the opinion that his humor, though copious, is just too dry for most American ears. Beyond that, however, Perl programmers themselves are very funny.