Well Novell Issue is something very serious. And I dont think that the way the volunteers reacted was bad. And the fact being Novell was a main sponsor of the event and it was hidden.
At FSFS something happened from the side of speakers who are employees of SUN and who don't know what is Free Software, there are just techies/employees. Who just work according to SUN's directives for salary. They came for the technology track and those who came for the policy track(who actually knew what free software is) didnt use windows or any proprietary systems.
And at the exhibition it was the SBT stall which used vista, and they are also employees of SBT who dont know anything about technology or free software. They came there to collect data/queries from customers.
And in the FSUG-Trivandrum stall it was only the theme. And it was done to demonstrate how customizable the whole system is. To make a layman understand that this is not an alien system.
And I think positive steps should be taken to correct these mistakes. Strict directives should be given as policy not to use Proprietary Softwares.
-- Anoop Jacob Thomas