As usual, Frank and his sock puppets don't present all the facts, and they make wild assumptions based on very little information.
Bobby, of course, posts the latest leaked information (3 days, not bad turn around time there guys, though a little slow. I figured this would be posted by Christmas afternoon)... But, I note he doesn't quite post all of it. And one of the points on the second page that wasn't transcripted into PDF specifically deals with one of Frank's comments: That the writers will be expected to communicate and work with each other to make sure the entire thing fits together.
But, to answer the general point of this... Referenced Reading listed in Bobby's PDF is the Almanac and all of the SR4 "Place books" (RUnner Havens, Feral Cities, etc). Street Magic isn't listed because, as freelancers, we all assume that the core SR4 rulebooks are included in that. Common sense and all that.
And this is why these "leaks" are annoying. They're presented with little secondary information, they're incomplete, and they're presented with commentary not backed up by fact.
Also... We really would like to do more general bandying about of these projects on the freelancer list. So we can fact check each other better. But when we can;t even brainstorm or spitball ideas without them getting posted online and blown way the frag out of proportion, it severely hampers what we can do and how much double checking those of us with more extensive background knowledge of Shadowrun can actually to do help. War didn't get bounced off all the freelancers for this reason, and with a bit more time, some of us could have caught and commented on some of the problems in there. Attitude's getting a bit better treatment, but still it's limited because none of the authors want to see their rough drafts posted online.
So, yeah, what the hell indeed.
Bull