Boycott Novell Protesters Manhandled In India

James Mathew writes "This is an interesting story from Kerala, India, where the ruling Communist Party organized a national conference in its efforts to hijack the Free Software Movement, which has enviable roots in the state. They got Novell to sponsor it. On the second day of the conference, a few free software activists who displayed posters against Novell were manhandled by the organizers and police — typical of what is expected from them. Most of the snaps taken during the scuffle were forcefully deleted by the organizers, after seizing the protesters' mobile phones. Still they couldn't delete all. Here is another blow-by-blow account."

Comments

Communist software

[kandela]

Why am I not surprised that the makers of Groupwise are communist sympathisers.

Sadly

[Anonymous Coward]

The pictures don't show anything and any people quoted would have vested interests.

Re:Sadly

[ultranova]

Of course I'm assuming that the only reason people were recording was because they were in on the acts that disrupted the event. Suppose someone videotapes their friend starting a house fire or raping someone else. I know those are felonies but suppose the only reason they were there was because their friend told them to show up. I would think that they shared a little of the blame even if not enough to be criminal but the tape shouldn't be used to further the person's cause. And yes, I'm talking about enviromental terrorists who burn homes after then were built to close to wild life areas and Gang Members video taping new members going through initiation and having to kill someone, rape someone, burn a house down or something in order to get into the gang. The tape shouldn't ever be allowed to eb the evidence for that.

Are you trying to say that the Indian police is a gang who's members raped and killed the protesters prior to setting their houses on fire and throwing them out ? Or did you mean that videotaping a police officer arresting a criminal shouldn't be allowed ? Because, after all, the video in question didn't show the protesters actions, but those of the police.

Extra points for absurd escalation, from "protesters blocking someone's view" into "an arsonist gang who initiates new members with rape and murder". Nothing like a ludicrously disproportional analogy to add flavour to an incoherent argument - that's why I love Slashdot :).

Alternative Viewpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

Free Software activists start a protest on private property, are asked to leave by owners/organisers and forgo negotiation, instead opting for point-blank refusal. This leads to a confrontation because both of both parties being excessively stubborn.

Sounds like 50/50 blame split to me.

Re:Alternative Viewpoint

[speedtux]

There shouldnt be any freedom of speech limiting withing groups which both support open and free software.

Why not? Open source and free software events have rules and agendas like any other meeting. And participants have limited time to get the job done they came for.

If participants or protestors won't shut up and keep disrupting the event, they should get kicked out by security. It doesn't matter who it is or what message they are pushing, and it doesn't matter whether it's in the US or India.

Re:Alternative Viewpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

Open source and free software events have rules and agendas like any other meeting.

Let's say this was a Open Source and Free Software meeting and all they promoted was proprietary software. Would protesting that be fair?

That's exactly what they're doing according to Groklaw and even Novell themselves ,

Novell's SEC filing reads: "If the final version of GPLv3 contains terms or conditions that interfere with our agreement with Microsoft or our ability to distribute GPLv3 code, Microsoft may cease to distribute Suse Linux coupons in order to avoid the extension of its patent covenants to a broader range of GPLv3 software recipients,"

Remember that Novell helped Microsoft get OOXML approved and Novell forked OpenOffice.org as soon as it moved to GPLv3.

Of course don't forget that Novell make their own version of Microsoft's SilverLight but they call it Moonlight. It's free to download but you have to download it from Novell to get patent indemnity... it exploits loopholes in GPLv2 in order to remove open source rights. To quote Miguel...

During the discussion, de Icaza explained that while anyone who downloaded Moonlight from Novell was protected by the company's licensing of Silverlight codecs from Microsoft through the company's own cross-licensing agreement. Mike Schroepfer, vice president of engineering from Mozilla, then raised the question that if he downloads and then distributes the code for Moonlight, would he get the patent protection? "There is a patent covenant for anyone that downloads [Moonlight] from Novell," answered de Icaza, who then acknowledged that "as to extending the patents to third parties -- you have to talk to Microsoft."

So this is what Novell want to make Open Source. These protesters stood up for the spirit and the letter of the GPL. Good on them!

Re:Alternative Viewpoint

[holloway]

Yep, that's pretty much it! Here's a photo of what the protesters were hanging up (JPEG, 300KB)

Re:Alternative Viewpoint

[mcvos]

Thats not the point. There shouldnt be any freedom of speech limiting withing groups which both support open and free software.

Without a clear report of what really happened there it's impossible to decide where the blame lies, but if the protesters actually disrupted the conference, you could argue that they were limiting the free speech of others.

In the end, it's the organiser of the conference who decides what talks and what sponsors will be accepted. If you disagree, you can always organise your own conference.

On the other hand, if the protesters were merely wearing anti-Novell T-shirts or protesting outside, and not actually interfering with the proceedings of the conference itself, then I agree their freedom of speech has been seriously harmed.

Boycott Boycott Novell

[PixelSlut]

Sorry, but the Boycott Novell people are complete retards to begin with. To my knowledge they don't actually produce anything for the open source community, but they sit around and bitch and whine about Novell who employs all kinds of open source hackers; including kernel hackers, GTK and GNOME hackers, window manager hackers, Mono hackers, accessibility hackers, open source artists, and more. Sorry if I have very little sympathy for the situation. It's not that I think anyone should be 'manhandled' under any situation, but these guys are the most inconsiderate members of the "open source community" and it's hard for me to really take most things they say very seriously.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[CRCulver]

...Mono hackers...

That's a reason to lead a campaign against Novell in itself.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[CarbonMonoxide]

In this particular case though , the people who protested seems to be among the most active FOSS hackers in Kerala...

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[PixelSlut]

That's the most retarded fucking thing in the world. If you don't like Mono, just don't fucking use it. The point is, these guys aren't actually contributing anything. Instead they just sit around and criticize fucking awesome hackers. Mono is really fantastic software. If you don't like it, just don't use it.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[PenguSven]

right, because .Net is making every other development language/platform obsolete, and everyone wants to use .net. in simmilar news, AIDS is the new black, and everyone will have it this summer. you notice the operative word in what you wrote? "I" it might kick ass from YOUR perspective, but not necessarily everyone (or anyone) elses.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[siddesu]

Man, you say "fuck" a lot. You're Sean Connery's distant relative or something?

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[bug1]

That's the most retarded fucking thing in the world. If you don't like Mono, just don't fucking use it.

He criticized a piece of software, your carrying on like he insulted your god(s), Get a grip...

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[sumdumass]

I think your missing the point.

Novell is being productive and an asset to the open source community while the best the protesters will do is stop that. They are claiming to be helping the OSS community by chasing the developers, hackers and supporters away. That's sort of like giving your baby up for adoption to a family financially and morally worse off then you are and expecting it to have a better life.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[mcvos]

The point is, these guys aren't actually contributing anything. Instead they just sit around and criticize fucking awesome hackers. Mono is really fantastic software. If you don't like it, just don't use it.

In other words: it should be about the code, not the politics.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[Kadin2048]

You're taking on premise that Novell does more good than harm to the Linux / Free Software world. I suspect that the Boycott Novell people would disagree with that.

I haven't been firmly convinced either way, but their stance seems to be that Novell is basically Microsoft's sleeper agent, and that the OSS world would be better off if they just disappeared tomorrow, even though that would mean some of the less-evil things they're doing would stop, than if they continue. I.e., they think the continued existence of Novell, taken as a whole in its current form, is a bad thing.

I don't think either camp -- pro-Novell or anti-Novell -- is really doing a great job of making its points in a rational and unemotional way. There seems to be a lot of noise and argument but not a lot of actual substantiative discussion.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[sumdumass]

What restrictions are the inflicting? All the I am aware of is that they don't forward something they don't have control over to others. That's not inflicting anything, the danger is already there, the only difference is that on one specific use, one specific company won't sure their customers. Nothing in the novell MS deal stops me from suing Novell's users if my patents are found in the products, nothing stops Sun or HP or the patent trolling company of the month. The patent deal isn't inflicting anything and to date, no one has claimed that novell actually included Microsoft's IP into one of the open source products. Maybe with a stand along closed source or non-free product but not in a FOSS product. Well, unless there is something I'm not aware of.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[sumdumass]

You wanted me to prove the existence of what would be undisclosed MS patents, I thought you liked throwing out impossible challenges. Besides, you're the one claiming there is NO problem, so maybe you should attempt to prove it.

Your the one making the assertions that they are there. You need to support your claim. If you can't support your claim, then we have to take Novell at their word in that they aren't there. Me proving the opposite of your claim is just ridiculous, that would be like me saying your a no good tax cheating child molesting, raping baster, oh and if you disagree, I won't offer evidence in support of my accusation, you just need to prove that your not.

At least in the case of Novell, there is a record of what they have added, the additions get vetted by many other people in the community as well as the project admins and if your scared that something might have slipped by them, you have the option of just no using the stuff Novell has contributed. In the case of the accusation against you, there is nothing of the sort and the likelihood of it not being true is even harder to catch then in the system surounding Novell's contributions.

The problem with Novell's deal is that they're setting themselves up to be the only legit distributor of Linux, once it becomes encumbered with MS patents. (By anyone - even if the patented code was reproduced by Linus himself.) If there are no patents life goes on as now - if there are, Novell wins big.

This statement is just false. Novell doesn't control Linux. If Linux become encumbered with patents of Microsoft somehow, it will be because of people other then Novell. If novell adds something to anything, it is reviewed. If that review turns up a patent, then other groups and projects simply don't use the patented materials. That means Novell will be the only authorized distributor of Novell's MS patent encumbered versions of Linux in which the GPL already makes statements about despite that the Patent Deal might not even cover them.

Now it appears that what your pissed about is that if there is ever found that patents do exist in linux, then Novell might not have to stop using it when other will. But if you read the deal or even the breakdown Grokelaw did, you will find that the patent deal with MS didn't cover anything that competes with MS products or that were primarily developed by a third parties (that rules out the kernel). There are three exclusions to the covered patents, they are Foundry Products, Clone Products and Other Excluded Products. That means that Postfix or Apache, wouldn't be covered by the patent deal if Novell injected some poisoned code in it. It means that open office or mozilla or Gnome or Mono or anything of the sort in which meets one of more of those definitions wouldn't be covered and Novell wouldn't be an authorized distributor of them if they ever become encumbered by anyone.

The information has been availible for years now. Most people have dropped the "Novell is teh evil" by now because of it. Everything was blown out of portion during the creation of the deal because the Church of Stallman wanted to push the GPLv3 through when very few people were supporting it and they purposely misrepresented the facts in order to do so. The worst part of this is that their manufactured outrage which you apparently are still effected by, came at a time when the disaster that is Windows Vista was first released and all the TCO studies MS did were invalidated because the entire benefit to MS, the retraining costs associated with linux, was being recreated in the switch to vista. For

Yep

[FungusCannon]

Communists are assholes.

non-story

[Anonymous Coward]

a single guy gets pushed around by a couple policeman, after ideologically motivated protest against novell. truly a sign of an out-of-control communist tyranny!

I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[Master of Transhuman]

You know, the die-hard haters who come out of the woodwork every time Novell is mentioned, dredging up the years old Microsoft deal, which I predicted at the time would have zero impact on Linux and FOSS and have been vindicated in that prediction - except for the haters.

These people really don't give a damn about Linux or FOSS - all they care about is establishing that they're more "moral" than everyone else by opposing any interoperability deals with Microsoft. The fact that the average corporation couldn't care less and only wants some assurance that their Linux deployment will work with their Microsoft deployment is ignored by these morons. The fact that this allows Novell to improve, however small, Linux's penetration into the data center and corporations doesn't interest them either. The fact that whatever Novell agreed to in the deal in terms of "patent protection" is overwhelmingly irrelevant to any future patent cases (which so far haven't materialized and are unlikely to - and unlikely to be won by Microsoft when they do, as countless people have pointed out) doesn't matter to these clowns either.

Only their juvenile emotional well-being matters to them - and of course, damaging the emotional well-being of everyone else who disagrees with their fanaticism.

Fuck 'em.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[PixelSlut]

It benefits Novell, but Novell benefits Linux.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[DoofusOfDeath]

You know, the die-hard haters who come out of the woodwork every time Novell is mentioned, dredging up the years old Microsoft deal, which I predicted at the time would have zero impact on Linux and FOSS and have been vindicated in that prediction - except for the haters.

Yeah, but in all fairness, I think many of us forgot that you predicted that. If we'd remembered, we would definitely have kept our mouths shut.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[sumdumass]

If MONO is GPLed, then anyone can distribute it because the GPL gives them that right. Novell is the only one offering patent indemnification which isn't the same thing. MS has never claimed they would sue anyone for MONO if they distributed the source or got it from somewhere other then novell. It is nothing but FUD when people claim Novell is the only ones who can distribute something covered by the GPL. You are taking No more of a change with Mono then you would be from any other product. If some company decides they own a patent on the product and sue you, you hit regardless of using Mono or KDE or Gnome or Linux or BSD or GCC or whatever the person makes the claim about.

Hell, the GPLv3 doesn't even fix that. All it says is that if you know about a patent covering the product, you can't distribute it unless you can distribute a license to use the patent too. If a third party declares they own something in the produce or have a patent that coveres it, your in the same boat as any other license or Mono.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[holloway]

How is that even possible? Isn't Mono supposed to be OSS?

Seems like it's Microsoft licensed tech QUOTE:

[Miguel] de Icaza explained that while anyone who downloaded Moonlight from Novell was protected by the company's licensing of Silverlight codecs from Microsoft through the company's own cross-licensing agreement.

Mike Schroepfer, vice president of engineering from Mozilla, then raised the question that if he downloads and then distributes the code for Moonlight, would he get the patent protection?

"There is a patent covenant for anyone that downloads [Moonlight] from Novell," answered de Icaza, who then acknowledged that "as to extending the patents to third parties -- you have to talk to Microsoft."

So Novell/Microsoft use software patents to remove some/most of the benefits of OSS.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[recoiledsnake]

mono != moonlight != patented video codecs in moonlight

MySpace/YouTube Integration is a feature emerging

[SeaFox]

Most of the snaps taken during the scuffle were forcefully deleted by the organizers, after seizing the protesters' mobile phones.

Lesson for next time: Use a phone with automatic blogging so the photos are off the phone and on the Net before they can stop you.

others top my list

[speedtux]

The objections of BoycottNovell.com against Novell make no sense to me: Microsoft's deal with Novell hasn't affected anybody negatively, and Novell continues to make valuable contributions to the FOSS communities (note: I'm an Ubuntu user, and although I like Mono better than Java, I don't use it much).

At the top of my list of companies that claim to be open source-friendly but that actually have dangerous agendas would be Sun, Apple, and Nokia. All of those companies have big patent portfolios, deals with Microsoft, and patent deals, and they have frequently acted against the interests of open source and open standards, and we still don't boycott them. Furthermore, although those other companies talk a lot about their contributions, Novell is probably responsible for a lot more software that people use day-to-day.

Re:Boycott Novell?

[Hal_Porter]

The police are probably twitter sockpuppets.

Re:What a Shame !!

[Paradigm_Complex]

I've always found it very difficult to chose whether or not to back those who support my own aims for all the wrong reasons.

by that reasoning

[speedtux]

By that reasoning, you should boycott anything Linus or the BSD community produce: when those projects started, their kernels and tools were under considerable legal uncertainty. AT&T and other vendors claimed lots of copyrights and patents. You also shouldn't use Java because Sun has numerous patents on Java.

Open source has always been pushing the limits on patents, copyrights, and cloning, and open source has always been rubbing powerful vendors the wrong way. If anything, the legal situation surrounding Mono is better than it was for Linux or Java: with Mono, we have a public commitment from Microsoft that the core is free (the core that FOSS Mono software actually uses), and nobody has been able to identify patents that read on the core language, libraries, or runtime.

The only reason people get pushed out of shape about Mono is because of the Microsoft connection. But let me tell you: the original UNIX overlords were just as nasty and monopolistic and people still adopted Linux and made it a success.

Nothing to do with FOSS/Novell ...whatever

[Anonymous Coward]

Its like this...
1. The government organized some event
2. The government deployed police because there would be "eminent" people ( read "politicians") participating in the event, and need "security"
3. A firm sponsored the event.We all know what sponsored means, dont we
4. A group of protesters land up from no where, bad mouthing the chief sponsor
5. The government would be embarrassed if the protesters are not dispersed. After all, its the government, the mighty government, whose actions are beyond reproach, and who is above the law
6. The police disperse them the only way they know of : bash them up

Its just a govt organized event, which ran into problems, and the troublemakers needed to be dealt with.

If it were a automobile expo, and Toyota ( just as an analogy) were a sponsor and toyota detractors landed up, the outcome would have been same.Protesters being manhandled is nothing new here, and nothing unexpected either.

The country has simply moved from protesters being beaten up by the British government prior to 1947, to them being beaten up by their own elected government since then.

Most photos taken with digicams can be undeleted

[merc]

There has never been a time in my life when some person of supposed authority have made any attempt to force me to delete photographs from my digital camera. Perhaps I am just not taking photos of important things. But should that happen I might gleefully comply if I didn't want to make a big deal about it.

Many digital cameras use VFAT filesystems which means their contents can be recovered. The utility of my personal choice is photorec(1). The photorec utility runs quite well on Linux. Just use /bin/dd to make an image of the SCSI disk to your HDD, run photorec with the device file as the parameter.

Photorec is written by Christophe GRENIER (no, I am not he) and can be found at:

http://www.cgsecurity.org/

Re:Boycott Novell?

[twitter_sockpuppet]

Yeah, because everyone is a twitter sockpuppet.

BoycottNovell - the sad truth

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, zealous protesters on private property and zealous policemen aside, Roy Schestowitz is just a kid with massive amounts of time on his hands and a grudge the size of Ireland. He's an unemployed college dropout who lives with his parents (I'm not kidding here) and his credibility level is less than zero. Occasionally he'll write up something interesting, but with his seemingly 24/7/365 posting activity (just head on to COLA to get an idea) most of what he writes is just self-referential gobbledygook of no value whatsoever. Six or seven thousand-word-plus posts per day? No way.

Anyone who thinks Microsoft made Hans Reiser kill his wife, claims he turned down a "six figure" job because they asked him for a Word document or posts things like these shouldn't be taken seriously. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and that's what he banks on. The rest is really just his inexperience, insane hatred and child-like demeanor showing through.

That blog is nothing more than an endless stream of misrepresentations, thinly veiled lies, witch hunts and weird "THIS IS WHAT YOU SHOULD BE SCARED OF" prose, accentuated by what I suppose he thinks are "funny" photoshopped images of people and things he thinks are out to get him. A few days ago he wrote up a storm about all the journalists he estimated had been "bribed" by Microsoft because they got evaluation laptops with Windows 7, and a few of those people actually humoured him by stopping by and explaining why they wouldn't throw away decades of journalistic experience and reputation for a $2,000 laptop, but he just ignored them. Hey, he's right and he knows it.

Linux.com featured an article by Bruce Byfield on this. Roy has a retinue of about half a dozen hanger-ons why post up a storm whenever and wherever anyone criticizes his abrasive "advocacy", which can be seen clearly there... don't miss the fact that our very own favorite troll is also chummy with him (I mean if you needed an excuse). It seems he does these days is post links to Schestowitz's blog with his fourteen accounts anyway.

I'm sure it's important to keep an eye out for Microsoft and all, but by god, this guy is just bad news for the FOSS community. He brings out the worst of the "OMG I HATE MICROSOFT, I AM ANGRY AND I'M GOING TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!" crowd. On purpose, I'm sure. Because the more abrasive he becomes, the more people dislike him and the more he can claim he's being "stalked" and "targeted" by the Evil Empire (TM). That kid is trapped in a vicious circle he built for himself. He needs to take a deep breath, go outside and play or something. He's so desperate and impatient to make a name for himself but he goes about it with such incompetence (volume != quality) that sometimes I think he must be sponsored by someone or something like that. Hell, he's already claiming Microsoft and Novell are directly responsible for all this.

Anyway, teh internet is serious business and all that...

Re:BoycottNovell - the sad truth

[Anonymous Coward]

A few days ago he wrote up a storm about all the journalists he estimated had been "bribed" by Microsoft

See the comments:

http://boycottnovell.com/2008/11/09/yardena-arar-bribed-by-ms/
http://boycottnovell.com/2008/11/09/harry-mccracken-bribed-by-ms/

This is the most idiotic thing I've seen there yet, and I've seen plenty (although I just subscribe to his feeds, maybe it's time to stop now).

You'll notice he didn't post a retraction or an apology or anything like that.

Re:Anonymous Coward

[bain_online]

T.I.A.

This is India.

Hey common it would happen anywhere in the world.
Try spreading anti-microsoft pamphlets in a microsoft conference and you will be escorted out by a security team. And will be "manhandled" if you refuse to.
None of the photos show any kind of unnecessary violence. Unless those photos were deleted as said in TFA.

Re:Anonymous Coward

[lordsid]

You do get that it was meant to be a conference on free software, but instead the gobmint decided they wanted to hijack that message by having novell as the main sponsor? right?

This Slashdot thread is diverting the topic

[shyam_k]

HI, Myself one of the protestors of boycottnovell protest happened in kerala. I would like to summarize some points here.

The event was not organized by the Communist Party. Communist Party is promotting Free Software on several occasions and they have a good stand on Free Software. The event organizers are as seen here at the event site http://nfm2008.atps.in./ Some of the organizers were not having enough exposure to the Free Software world. That actually led to the situation of Novell being the platinum sponsor of the event. The whole problem is because of the igorance of the organizers on the subject. The organizers mishandled the subject without realizing the issue, as they have little knowledge about the issue raised by us.

Our concern was about Novell, and we wanted the general public to know the truth. For that we raised the posters telling them the reasons of boycott Novell. We didnot boycott the event. We did participate the event and tried to correct the organizers and tried to pass the correct information to the public. The organizers didnt realize this and they took their position with Novell due to their ignorance. and this mishandling of this issue caused the problems.

Anyway the organizers (CP(I)M is not among the organizers ) owe an appology to free software community regarding this.
I think the way slashdot presented the issue is misleading. This is not an issue between Communist party and Free Software people.
On behalf of the protestors
Shyam K

so how much of a hero are you?

[SuperBanana]

Lesson for next time: Use a phone with automatic blogging so the photos are off the phone and on the Net before they can stop you.

"What's this? Where are the photos you took?" "You uploaded them to a website?"

Then you get to enjoy a free trip in the back of a truck to somewhere with a net connection, and then you get pushed in front of a monitor and keyboard and told to log in and delete the photos by men with guns.

Your idea is great in a country where the police won't threaten to shoot you. Even here in the US, if they don't like you enough, you'll "resist arrest" and need a trip to the hospital; it happened to a photojournalism student in Provincetown, MA when the cops didn't like him taking photos of them beating the shit out of drunks.

Why do you think NYC doesn't supply flashlights to the cops and banned its officers from carrying Maglites larger than 3 D-cells? It's because cops used them to beat the shit out of people...

Re:so how much of a hero are you?

[stephanruby]

Google doesn't spider everything immediately; it can take some time. This means that there's a window of opportunity for those seeking to suppress information.

Not if you post your picture to a porn photo-blog, porn does not follow the normal space-time continuum. Any image uploaded -- flagged as porn is instantaneously transferred to millions of computers at the same time. This is one of reasons the next Internet (IPv6) is being tested with free porn. If the new Internet can handle porn, we'll know it can handle anything.

SW Patent Pact put Novell outside the community

[SgtChaireBourne]

This incident does bring up the question of what we will do when a government, NGO, or criminal group like the Mafia decides that Open Source software belongs to them and that people must pay a fee to them for using it...

Which is precisely what you have here. M$ tried via SCO to scuttle Linux. It turned out that SCO hadn't a leg to stand on. So, enter the Novel-M$ SW Patent deal where de Icaza and other receipt-carrying M$ Boosters inject proprietary technology into otherwise free and open source projects. Novell differs from SCO in that this time around there is a trail of receipts showing that yes you do owe M$money for their products even though they were readily available for download.

People have been good about readying the licenses for the main packages, but de Icaza and co. target the libraries and other components that these packages are built on. Combine that with a marketing team that hangs around Slashdot and goes after sites like Boycott Novell and they have made some headway. To be sure, Mono wastes a lot of space on the Ubuntu installation CD. Space which could have been used by Free Software. So even without the sw patent deal, Mono is technologically unsound.

Then there are Novell's attacks against OpenOffice.org and the OpenDocument Format. But that speaks for itself.

At the beginning it was simply described as a stupid move. Novell/M$ is a problem that is getting worse, mostly due to the noise they make and the interference they cause in free and open source projects. The patent pact put Novell outside the free and open source software community. The actions since then have only proven this to be more so.

Re:SW Patent Pact put Novell outside the community

[h4rm0ny]

I removed any trace of Novell from our department when they signed their patent-pact with Microsoft - a clear preparation of an attack on Free Software. I do get asked by people, because of my position and background, for advice on which distribution to go for. I always caution against Novell products and, because I owe it to clients and friends, I explain why I am against the company rather than just leave it as uninformed prejudice.

As to Novell people hanging around on Slashdot, I'm quite sure they do. But astroturfing is a flawed tactic. There is no better online forum than Slashdot to get bad or biased arguments shot down, so all the astroturfers ultimately achieve is preparing the wider community with solid counter-arguments against their marketing. Consider it vaccination against a virus - a chance for the IT community's immune system to see the coming FUD. Truth will out - yes, even on Slashdot.

Re:SW Patent Pact put Novell outside the community

[Teancum]

I really don't see why this is being modded up.

Yes, I understand that you have some vitriolic hatred toward Mono and consider developers working on it to be a source of wasted talent on what you consider to be a useless piece of software. So what? Others disagree and happen to like Mono for whatever other reason.

Novell is in an interesting position, where they started out as proprietary software developers and developed a rather rock solid business model that gave them some huge piles of cash for awhile. The world shifted and frankly Mircosoft is largely to blame for the fact that the earlier businesses that Novell was involved with died a hard death. Novell even tried to compete with offering a better product and using hard-nosed sound engineering principles, only to get shafted by Microsoft when they deliberately put in software that would screw up the Novell network protocols into their Windows OS suites.

I could get into more, but Novell certainly isn't "in bed with Microsoft", and in fact has found a rather interesting way to insulate itself from Microsoft's tactics: embrace and join with the open source software movement. I think it is a stinking genius move on their part, and without moving to supporting open source software, Novell would no longer even exist as a company... or certainly would be looking at auctioning off most of their office furniture (as they already have).

Novell here is the victim of Microsoft harassment, and the reason they are acting they way that they do is precisely out of sheer survival and based on their history.

Furthermore, this still doesn't justify why it was necessary for these protesters to be jerks and disrupt a conference, exhibiting behavior that wouldn't be acceptable in any other "free" country elsewhere in the world either. If this had happened at a technology conference in Las Vegas, I wouldn't have expected anything different (or perhaps the LVPD would be a little more rough).

I support this boycott!!

[monkeySauce]

I shall not purchase any Novell Protesters which were Manhandled in India!

We demand unspoiled protesters, dammit! (or at the very least, domestically manhandled ones-- it's better for our economy)

"piracy" only helps M$, hurts FOSS

[SgtChaireBourne]

... Maybe we should just encourage people in violence-based parts of the world (like India, Russia, and the minority communities of the USA) to use pirated Microsoft and other proprietary software.

So-called piracy only helps M$ against FOSS. See this 2006 LA Times article:

"And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. Theyâ(TM)ll get sort of addicted, and then weâ(TM)ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."
-- Gates, circa 1998

Advocating piracy in order to undercut competitors has carried M$ through the decades even now:

"It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not"
-- Gates, circa 2007

The only way for the market situation to get better is to avoid any and all use of M$Âproducts, including "pirated" ones.

Re:Anonymous Coward

[philspear]

Can we at least agree that they used physical force to silence the other side of the debate?

Re:Anonymous Coward

[Teancum]

If you are being a jerk, don't be surprised if you are treated like a jerk.

Sometimes these protesters get exactly what they are asking for, and in this case it sounds like they were begging and asking for a violent confrontation.

Unless there is evidence to the contrary, I think the physical force used "to silence the other side of the debate" was properly used.

It was the protesters who were doing the unethical behavior in this instance. There is a whole lot more to the story than what was published. I could give analogies, but this is something like going to a UK Soccer match wearing the colors of the visiting team and yelling obscenities about the home team.... in the middle of a bunch of drunken fans.

Well, not quite, but they certainly should have been aware of the fact that what they (the protesters at this conference) were doing wasn't welcome and may not be tolerated by the other participants. There certainly are a great many analogies to apply here to show this was a stupid idea.

Re:Anonymous Coward

[argiedot]

There are many Communist parties. This is the Communist Party of India (Marxist) - the CPI(M) or CPM. It is known for doing stuff like this. They're leftist only in name, have neo-liberal policies in their own state, and oppose anything American because it is American.

In addition, they're idiots. They kill people who oppose them (Singur, Nandigram). Their so-called activists, burn, rape and pillage. I, a leftist, would choose the Congress Party of India over the CPM any day.

In addition, they have thin skins, criticising the CPI(M) is A Bad Thing. "Don't you have any respect? How dare you say something about such a respected party" No, fuck you. Lumpen crap.

Footnote: This is the case with most big things in India, the BJP and the Congress are no different, except that they don't hide what they are, and the Congress is a bit too wimpy to shut people up.

Re:Anonymous Coward

[Z00L00K]

Police action will always make the cause more public so if you want to make some great headlines make sure that the police takes action against you.

What's the point?

[Mantrid]

Isn't boycotting Novell like boycotting the horse and carriage? Does it serve a purpose?

Re:Anonymous Coward

[Lumpy]

you are right. Protesters that chain themselves to a fence deserve to be Tazered over and over and over again. come on they chained themselves to a fence! chains can kill! the cops need to tazer the man so many time because of how dangerous he was! HE WAS ASKING FOR IT!

the following is from a previous slashdot discussion...

"this is also considered resisting arrest and in situations officers will repeatedly tazer a limp person to torture them or pay them back for making them work. This happens a lot with protesters who make 2 or more cops carry them off, One who chained himself to a fence was tazered enough times that the cop had to get a second tazer as he emptied his. The man refused to unlock himself, the cop was too pig headed to get a set of bolt cutters and drag him off and was intent in teaching the protester a lesson.

http://www.ourmedia.org/node/55217
http://digg.com/world_news/Police_attack_PEACEFUL_Anti_War_Protestors_with_tasers_dogs_pepper_spray

http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/18/1239237

for the actual slashdot article.

Sorry, but cops and "authorities" love to physically assault peaceful protesters. It happens so much I almost wonder if they train them to do it.

Back in the 50's and 60' it was not unheard of corrupt cops being beaten severely off duty, but they also fired and blackballed dirty cops then when they discovered they were doing wrong... today they get a 3 month paid vacation and protected by their other gang members.

Re:Anonymous Coward

[ChromaticDragon]

There is some truth that all politicians and to some degree all political parties share much in common that most would find distasteful.

But in India, there is much, MUCH more diversity of main political parties that there is in the US. They really are rather different in many ways.

As an outsider looking in and watching political debates, I can share my opinion. Congress isn't "wimpy". It's just by and large more mature. In any society that values free speech, you don't need or desire to "shut people up". You'd think a country born out of non-violent protest would really appreciate this. When asked about why Congress fared so poorly after the Godhra riots, Sonja had the merit to explain in a public roundtable that time and again we see people shift to hardline parties in times of fear only to come to their senses later. This would be akin to the top Democrat leaders just after Sept 11 holding incredibly steady and pointing out where, how and why Americans were falling sway to manipulation by fear from the Republicans instead of simply trying to outdo the Republicans.

The BJP (and others), is a great example that religious fanaticism intertwined in politics is not at all unique to the US. Their reasoning is so similar to the board in Animal Farm, it's not even funny.

But yes, in Kerala especially these folk (CPM) have a bad rap. Furthermore, Communists in Kerala over the decades have provided excellent case studies of the folly of Communistic policies or anything similar. There are STILL huge swaths of land that were "appropriated" by the government decades ago that lie fallow, undeveloped and unused. There were vast acres and acres of very productive farmland that immediately went into disuse after the land grab. A similar more recent example would be Zimbabwe's horrible decline. Popular sentiment in Kerala is finally swinging around to the idea that this was a very stupid mistake and the former landowners were stiffed. But you're almost certainly not going to see it rise to the level that the CPM (and others) would admit they were wrong.

Re:Anonymous Coward

[argiedot]

I appreciate your interest in Indian politics and the possibly more objective viewpoint you have as a person outside the country, but I really must mention a few things:

• The Congress is no angel. They have played what's called a soft Hindutva game as opposed to the BJP's more fundamentalist stance. The Congress is perceived as trying to play to both tunes, and failing at both.
• The Congress is no stranger to pogroms. When the Prime Minister was assassinated, Congress politicians, Ministers, the government machinery set up to keep law and order, all tacitly or overtly supported the anti-Sikh violence. The Congress has since suppressed commission reports on the violence. They got away with it, nearly all of them.

Also, there are a lot of things that are wrong with Kerala. It is more of a case in bad governance and horrible land planning than a failure of Communist-style policies. Land reforms have worked well elsewhere in the country. They were necessary, because after the British Raj, a few people held a large amount of arable land, and everyone had to live a painful life as a share-cropper. In the prosperous states, land reforms have worked well, and even in West Bengal (the CPI(M) stronghold, where they've committed some horrible atrocities) the Communist Party stayed in power on the backs of some well thought out reforms.

Anyway, we digress, the issue in this particular case, though, seems to be the same that pervades all levels of Indian society: the old is automatically good, and must be shown 'respect'.

PS: Just thought this is necessary, seeing as I've been scathing. I love this country, which is why I criticise it so much.