Thoughts on FLOSS Weekly Episode 91: Boycott Novell

Last week I listened to the most recent episode of the TWiT podcast, FLOSS Weekly and their guest was the current person behind the Boycott Novell group Roy Schestowitz. Now beyond the name I have no real idea what the purpose of the site is and during the interview, Roy's responses made it seem like it was just "Microsoft is evil." with plenty of talk about him being personally insulted and slandered. At no point did he come out and say, "This is what our issues are: A, B, C. And this is what we want to happen: A, B, C."

Jono's focus on the issue of spammers being something that Roy should be dealing with all the time confused me and detracted from the interview. Really all Roy should have to do is have a disclaimer page and when he finds out a community is being infested by one of these spammers then he can contact those that run it and ask them to publicise the disclaimer that these people are not to be listened to. However it seems that

I spent the next couple of days browsing the site and sitting in the chat room. Within a couple of hours of loggin in Jono appears to this welcome.

twitter	Hi, jono.
twitter	I saw where you called me a spammer.
twitter	Fuck you.

http://boycottnovell.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/irc-log-19102009.html

When Roy came on an hour and a half later there was no rebuke but instead complaints about people pretending to be him and general apologistic I can't control what other people do stuff. He should have kicked him and told him off, even better would be an apology but not required.

So from someone who started off as pretty apathatic to the BoycottNovell idea I've moved to they're a bunch of muppets point of view due to their actions as a community.