What would the executives have said if the deployment team had said to them "The product can stay online, but these are the risks of doing so while we work on them."?
I guess you’ve fallen foul of the rules to protect against trademark “squatting”. They surely weren’t designed with (non-commercial) OSS projects in mind.
Could the friends access the server through the VPN?
> It's secured behind our own VPN.
> So, how do I create a shared photo album with my friends where we can all upload pictures from our latest trip? Well...since our friends can't access our server
Playing Devil’s advocate… Socialisation is what’s driving technology use. It’s just happening on the phones, not irl. Just like with alcohol, anyone not participating will be left out. If everyone’s on their phones all the time, IRL socialisation won’t matter compared to socialisation via phones.