MESSAGE
| DATE | 2003-02-10 |
| FROM | Richard Stallman
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [hangout] Re: eGovOS conference in D.C.; I'm not attending that
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Are you suggesting that in order for the conference to be legitimate a
university and a conference committee that includes several government
employees should deny a speaker from Microsoft the right to present the
Microsoft position in debate before an audience almost guaranteed to be
packed with active competitors and adversaries of Microsoft?
>From what I hear, it will not be a debate. Microsoft will pretend it
is another supporter of "open source", or at least not far from it.
A real debate would be a legitimate thing, but this event is the wrong
place for it. It should take place in a neutral academic event, one
that does not pretend to be a place to advocate free software or open
source.
It is accepted and legitimate for advocacy events to refuse to give
the platform to the adversary. We should not accept a double standard
that says this is legitimate for everyone except us.
____________________________
New Yorker Free Software Users Scene
Fair Use -
because it's either fair use or useless....
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