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Demise Of The Premier .NET community site
Seems like something has horribly gone wrong at ASPFriends.com. The site is being closed as a result of a break down in negotiations with Microsoft over support for funding this developer community forum which has over 73000 members who post over 12 million messages a month regarding MS development. The primary reason for this break down seems to be do with the contract that had to be signed to receive funding. I'm no lawyer and I've not seen the entire contract but it seems like it contains clauses which basically state "at our discretion, with 30 days notice we can terminate this contract and take ownership of your site".
I remember a few years ago I was a beta tested for some MS software. Bored one day, i checked out some of the beta EULA, and was horrorfied to see that I agreed to let MS take my computer and all software at whim for testing purposes. Yep, they could take my machine away from me if they wanted too.
I quickly got out of the beta program after that.
Notice the additional space inserted into the URL. Here's a link to the reply from Microsoft: http://asp.net/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?tabindex=1&Pos tID=88049.
Please read this to get both sides of the story, it brings several items to light, including an overview of the purpose of the contact.
Justin Wong nailed this one: http://www.aspfriends.com/search/MSG.ASP?msgid=753 489
I use these lists regularly. On more than one occasion, they have saved me countless hours (and days even) when I have had some sort of unusual technical question. In fact, these lists are somewhat of a "security blanket". The news groups are a lot slower, more impersonal. Back in the beta days, many of the MS project team would answer questions on the lists. I've personally corresponded with authors of books, presenters, and other experts. I'm going to be really bummed if and when they go down. I also find these lists very useful as a .NET User Group leader where I can announce my meetings in the community list.
.NET topics, and a great guy in general), Charles didn't want to accept the terms of the MS agreement (he went to MS in the first place because he could no longer fund the list- costs about $3K per month).
Anyway, I've kind of been taking a back seat and watching the responses. It seems like its basically a battle between MS and Charles Carrol, the list owner. Actually, Charles hasn't really said anything as of yet since he has been in Florida, but according to Scott Guthrie (the MS founder/expert on ASP among other
A lot of people are guessing he didn't want to accept because of one of the clauses-- saying how MS gets the list if it closes. A quote from Scott's email:
Over the course of the last few days, Charles has refused to reply to
our emails, and has immediately hung up on us the two times we've been
able to get through to him on the phone.
We've had a long association with Charles and respect the work he's done
with the community, so it's distressing to the team and to me personally
that Charles has chosen this path.
What is suprising to me is that a bunch of people on the list (over 70K people total on the list) are offering to pony up $20. Kloberg Mac, apparently a close friend of Charles, has said the following:
The reason Charles hasn't responded yet is because he's currently in Florida, teaching a class.
He wanted me to let you know, that although your willingness to save AspFriends is appreciated,
*** PLEASE DO NOT SEND ANY DONATIONS AT THIS TIME ***
I'm sure he will comment in more detail later...
Regardless of what happens, this is a MAJOR PR issue for MS. I think it needs to be resolved as QUICKLY as possible. A lot of people are starting to get really peaved at MS. I question why they got involved in the first place. Even though the group is obviously benefitting MS, I really don't think Charles should have went to MS. Getting money from MS (or any company for that matter) is going to have some strings attached!
Unfortunately I cannot think of a great solution to this. I suppose paypal donations are one way, but even that means there is no guarantee that the 3K bill would be paid each month. Requiring donations or a subscription means that you lose out on a lot of the experienced techies who are contributing as well as the newbies who are looking to learn. Losing either means a critical hit (techies in terms of answering questions, newbies in terms of growing the list).
On the other hand, if MS starts a mailing list, it will be percieved as totally biased and probably have stringent rules. Example: no bashing MS products or MS people. People want "freedom of speech" and an independent list means that.
Meanwhile, I'll be watching the activity and will try to post updates to this thread as it unfolds.