Summary: aaahhhh... ummmm... eeeeehhh... ummmm.... uh.... aaaahhh... sniff
This is an unofficial, fragmented, selectively quoted and smarmy transcript of Jono Bacon and Leo Laporte's FLOSS Weekly interview with Roy Schestowitz, proprietor of BoycottNovell. With some fact checking thrown in.
Note that the times below are for the MP3-format podcast, not the video.
And off we go ¶
03:54 Leo Laporte: "[Schestowitz] is not on video because he doesn't have a webcam... have we known we would have sent him a camera but he probably would have rejected it because it probably came from some closed source thing"
As this was recorded after the interview, Schestowitz didn't hear it in real time... but it's funny because it's true.
04:10 LL: "... you don't sound very British .. are you an expat?" Roy Schestowitz: (some unintelligible thing about education) "it's a personal story" LL: "My deepest apologies" (laughs)
Schestowitz is actually German [1]. Not sure what the big secret is supposed to be.
09:20 RS: "...people are tied to these illusions... in the case of Novell they want to say /we're an exciting company, good results/, ummm they want people to recite this"
I have a juicy post lined up about the illusions that Schestowitz ties to Novell.
09:59 Jono Bacon: "...[negativity about BN] do you think it's a personal bias/an axe to grind?" RS: "I think there is the possibility of misinterpretation ... employees of certain companies who try to poison against the site ... it's just me and myself [sic]"
Another (large) post coming up about how this negativity is freely mapped to "certain companies". I also have to chuckle at the "me and myself" part. Schestowitz fancies himself the leader of a community because there are five people logged into his IRC channel and uses the Royal We to refer to himself, but when the going gets tough he starts channeling De La Soul
10:46 "...it's easier to attack the person"
Miguel de Icaza, Nat Friedman, Bruce Byfield, Matt Asay [2], Ted Haeger, Jeff Waugh (and Waugh's wife), Thom Holwerda, Shane O'Neill, Tim O'Reilly, Jo Shields [3], Bryan Lunduke (from the Linux Action Show) [4], Greg Kroah-Hartman, Matt Zimmerman, Window Snyder, Albert Zonneveld, a random Wikipedia user... they all should have called in and said hi.
11:07 JB: "...do people have a grudge against you or the project?" RS follows with a completely unhinged monologue that answered nothing.
17:40 JB questions RS about Shane Coyle leaving BoycottNovell, and RS goes into the old story about a "misunderstanding"
Coyle didn't leave because of a misunderstanding, he left because of things like these, these and these and these. To suggest otherwise is nothing more than clever spin.
26:27 RS says Novell has 4,000 employees but only a few hundred work on Linux, JB says "surely you have the same objection to IBM" RS answers with "I don't attack developers", JB brings up the attacks on de Icaza and his GIMPE'd image holding a windows box (among many), RS starts to mumble a bit more.
28:53 JB argues that Novell is probably not as evil as RS paints them, they hire FOSS developers, they invest real money producing real software, great software is being produced with Mono, etc. RS: "I think you're steering towards the issues that are more convenient for you to talk about"
Getting a bit uppity here now, because he's getting cornered.
30:55 JB: "...give me a specific example of how Microsoft is advancing their interests" RS: "their patches are beneficial to Windows" (duh) JB: "does it matter?"
Here Schestowitz actually says "GNU/Linux", and it sounds extremely weird.
35:07 RS says "SuSE", in case anyone wondered if he's German or not.
36:10 JB: "...seven thousand tweets in three months" RS: "...misconception that people think I focus on the negative"
Schestowitz brings up that claim (which he uses constantly) about his daily grind being "80% GNU/Linux advocacy". I suspect he's conveniently measuring volume of linkage he puts out vs. the time investment.
36:43 JB: "...are you spammers?"
Ouchy
38:00 JB: "... a guy with 16 accounts that used to troll Slashdot and hangs out on your IRC channel"
The valued partnership that keeps on giving. I LOL'ed.
38:41 RS: "...it's difficult to denounce people who are trying to help" re: spamming on his behalf.
Yeah, "it's difficult to attack someone who puts you alongside RMS" [5]
39:00 RS: "...I don't choose my friends, I don't actually invite people..."
Nope, never happened
39:38 JB: "can you see that many people are doing this (spamming BoycottNovell content), do you see how people might draw a link to you?"
Naaah, it's all just a coincidence.
40:20 RS: "[people are] posting a link to [his blog], they must [not] be associated with the website"
Except that it's not just one link, it's thousands and thousands.
42:19 JB: "do you feel you have a responsibility to tell these spammers to stop?"
Schestowitz mentions he denounced Fink, which would be all well and good except for the "I like what you did" part.
48:50 After discussing spam, RS petulantly asks what JB thinks he should do about it, JB says maybe he should write a post specifically saying he has nothing to do with them.
Yeah, I can see that happening.
50:13 JB makes the point that there's an overbearing sense of negativity towards RS out there, so why do it? "...surely your life is unpleasant?" RS: "That's more of a convenient delusion you're trying to pass here"
Oh my.
50:31 "... the attacks come from Microsoft"
I wish Jono had had more time and stopped here to ask "Oh really? Can you provide factual proof of that?" That would have been an awesome three hours.
52:20 re: why he does what he does "[I was picking flowers in a field one day] and I started being attacked so I decided to explore these things ... looking into the PR agencies that are associated with Microsoft ... certain connections in government ... companies are not happy because they are criticized"
As time goes by I think Schestowitz is starting to sound more and more like a 9/11 truther.
54:28 JB says OK, "..[but] a lot of the people who criticize you are part of the FOSS community"
Obviously fully cornered now, RS then goes into a complete non-answer for three minutes, and discusses how he changed the front page of his website to avoid giving the "wrong impression" or something like that.
55:34 "...people who are associated with certain companies who are seeding information" ... "technical evangelists" ... "discrediting the website as a source of information" ... "I'm fine with that because i understand why it happens"
Translation: The abuse I get is only proof that I'm right. And it's all Microsoft's fault.
56:30 JB: "do you not think that BoycottNovell is damaging to FOSS, based on all this negative feedback?" Another three minutes of mumbling non-answers.
58:18 JB again: "...you haven't answered my question" RS: "[damaging to] free software... no, it might be damaging to other movements"
Yes, the Open Source movement. [6]
59:28 RS: "...the reason you approached me for this was because you disagree ... it's not as though you're presenting a very objective look [sic] here"
Oh dear god.
60:10 JB: "yes, I disagree [with BoycottNovell], I think it's damaging, but that doesn't mean I can't give you a platform, because you deserve to have that platform to put your message across"
60:35 RS: "...the questions the way they were posed tell one side of the story ... as long as the conversation is being guided by one side"
The meaning of the word "conversation" is apparently lost on our hero.
61:53 LL: "This is your chance to say whatever you want to say..." RS: "I don't have anything prepared" LL: "...OK, I just want to make sure that you feel that you've been heard"
He didn't have anything prepared, for great justice.
Ambush at high noon ¶
Iz Annoyed
Predictably enough, once in the familiar warm safety of his IRC channel and surrounded by his psychofans sycophants friends, Schestowitz declares the whole experience overrated and a disaster. It's always someone else's fault, he didn't prepare (even though he had almost two weeks advance notice). His institutional negativity is a false allegation, it's all the evil doings of Microsoft and Novell employees, who "ridicule" him. He starts pulling out his self-referential non sequiturs which will surely help everyone understand him better, if only we could just take the time to read them.
We have. They don't.
Schestowitz then gets slightly hysterical (in that same log) and plows into Jono Bacon, claiming he was "incited" with "libel from detractors" and so on. It's the same old story.
Some people (e.g., his friends) were quick to offer up the usual excuses about how Schestowitz should be cut some slack because he has made enemies detractors in USENET, a phenomenon he tends to project back to Microsoft without offering any factual proof. I have a hard time believing that Schestowitz was naive enough to think that he was being invited to FLOSS Weekly because of his vast and tangible contributions to free software, the bulk of which I lack the time and space to properly address here. I think he expected to be treated like the celebrity he thinks he is, with the proper deference afforded to him by his cadre. Unfortunately reality is a bit different from the bubble he lives in. Even then, apparently he knew what he was there for:
Hey guys ... As expected, jono aligned accusations against me
He knows it's all a conspiracy:
Where the boradcaster and hosts are all aligned against the guest. I know Leo is a fan of Miguel; he said so.
This debacle is just coincidence, really:
By making the guest uncomfortable they make it harder for him/her to speak clearly and make coherent arguments ... shows I get invited to are always like that
I wonder why they're always like that. Like Jono said during the interview, are you sure you're right and the people who criticize you are wrong? And also, just how many "shows" has he done? I count exactly two (see below).
What possible preconception could Jono Bacon have had about the BoycottBoys, after all? On this log Jono has a back and forth with Schestowitz' best friend, where he's actually accused of working for Novell (not making this up here). Here's a taste of what goes on in there:
<twitter> | the "rights holder" in mono [Microsoft] is not interested in dealing, and you can see the pile of corpses from those who tried before |
<jono> | twitter, pile of corpses? dude, this is not From Dusk Till Dawn |
Then twitter subsequently posts a comment here claiming he was "attacked". Is it any wonder that Bruce Byfield called it a den of paranoia?
Finally, Schestowitz posts a copy of the video, with the expected editorial cleverness:
That's me interrogated by Jono Bacon ... I was very uncomfortable on this show, and it probably shows. I knew it would be rather hostile.
If he knew that it would be a "hostile interrogation", why in the world would he even agree to it at all?
One last note here. Most people who heard the interview will probably wonder why Schestowitz sounded so weird. It's not the accent but rather that mumbling style of his. He heads this off at the pass by saying he sounded terrible, that he is "a lot more coherent in person". Really? This is also a coincidence then? §
“ Those who oppose us are usually the very same people whose interests they know are harmful to the advancement of Freedom
„
Revisions ¶
- [2009-10-18] Corrected the first item in the transcript and added a mention about the postscript, per comments (thanks!). Minor grammar fixes.
- [2009-10-25] Reworded a paragraph, per a BoycottBoy below. His constant flattering attention is always welcome, even if it makes him throw up a little in his mouth.
Notes ¶
