[Twirrim]

As with Spectre/Meltdown, L1TF et al, Intel chooses who to loop in to their disclosure.

All of it is tightly controlled under an embargo. Who they choose to involve is entirely their decision, and is likely based on previous experience with those parties and their likelihood of leaking. Intel doesn't want these kinds of things to leak before official communication is done, or it's pretty much guaranteed to impact their stock price.

This time around has gone much smoother than the previous ones, though L1TF was pretty good too. L1TF was a little rough with the patching side of things because the patches were finalised a little late.

The various distributions and companies knew that the embargo was due to end at 10am pacific, and were probably (like us) refreshing the security advisories page on Intel's site waiting to pull the trigger on all the relevant processes, like publishing blog pages etc.