Thanks Anon for this. The operator of the popular ASPFriends mailing lists is preparing to pull the plug on his service, accusing Microsoft of acting like a "bully" and mistreating the huge ASP.NET community. Charles Carroll, whose receives $36,000 a year from Microsoft to run the lists, is biting the hand that feeds him over a contract dispute. He is threatening to close his ASP.NET lists by December 1st, leaving thousands of members without a forum.
In an FAQ that appears on his site, Carroll takes numerous shots at Microsoft and the ASP.NET team. "Worshipping their products (I am huge VB6 advocate and ASP Classic was my life since it"s beta) does not mean I can turn a blind eye to when they abuse their customer or community"s trust," he writes.
Relations between Carroll and Microsoft"s ASP.NET team appear to have soured since the rise of the ASP.NET Forums which rival Carroll"s listservs. It seems that the MS team stopped participating in ASPFriends when their own forum came online. "Most of the ASP.net team themselves began answering hundreds of questions immediately in those forums to build interest and quit posting and answering on our lists. Then in typical Micrososft fashion they got overcommited and don"t even post much in their own forums leaving 70% of the questions unanswered." The cosy relationship between Microsoft"s ASP.NET group and ASPFriends was further damaged last summer when one of Carroll"s beta testers leaked the top-secret Saturn project (now known as Web Matrix) to Neowin.net. In a thread in Carroll"s aspfreeforall list, the ASP.NET trainer says he made a mistake in dealing with Microsoft. "I did not want to believe that MS was a bully but that contract taught me all the rumors and press about them were true and I made a big miscalculation creating a friendly community for their products."