ASPFriends Contract can Prevent Carroll's Attacks

TRhanks anon again for this follow up to our earlier report. Microsoft says a controversial contract term aims to stop ASPFriends Web site owner Charles Carroll from publicly harassing its employees. Carroll and Microsoft are embroiled in a controversy over the threatened December first closing of the popular ASPFriends listserv.

In a response published in the ASP.NET Forums here Scott Guthrie of the ASP.NET team justifies a contract term that restricts Carroll from using his listserv or Web site for personal attacks as he has done in the past. "Some of the comments were personal and disruptive enough that we asked him to refrain from such activity." Carroll has accused Microsoft of acting like a "bully" and mistreating the ASP.NET community in its treatment of ASPFriends. Guthrie says other contract terms simply ensure 30 days notice before listserv members are deprived of a service for which Microsoft has paid $40,000 so far.

"We asked for this because over the last 12 months Charles has on four different occasions threatened to close the listserv for reasons having nothing to do with our support for ASPFriends. He even carried through on his threat once and shut the list signups down for two days."

View: ASPFriends FAQ (has been removed, may reappear shortly)