Interop : Open Source Panel Heckled and Walked Out On

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It’s very rare that I’ve every been in a session at any conference session where an attendee heckles the panel and storms out. In a session at Interop on Open Source Risk that’s exactly what happened..and it was intense!

About 15 minutes into the session an attendee shouted out,

“When are you going to talk about risk instead of just going back and forth talking about risks and benefits of open source?” the attendee shouted. “We’re not here for the benefits, I don’t
want to insult you but that’s not why I’m in here and if you’re not going to take my question I’m going to walk out.”

Linux Foundation COO Dan Kohn who was moderating the panel shot back:

“If you feel you need to walk out…open
source is all about choice,” Kohn said.

The Kohn continued on with his panel which included Brian Gentile, President and CEO, JasperSoft, Dominic Sartorio, President, Open Solutions Alliance, Doug Levin President Black Duck Software and Ross Turk Community Manager at SourceForge.

The disgruntled attendee then gut up and left. As he closed the door he shouted out:

“You should stick to
the program! “

I’ve personally never seen anything like this. To be fair though the panel did seem to be all ‘open source is great’ but they did (Doug Levin in particular) talk about the risks that may exist.

Also to be fair though, all the panelists were in the open source business. That’s how the program was listed in the program guide. If Interop really wanted a more robust/competitive session they could/should have added Microsoft to the panel.