MESSAGE
| DATE | 2003-02-11 |
| FROM | David Sugar
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [hangout] Re: status
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Bruce,
what you said is precisely the reason why I think it was wrong to have them at
this event in the first place. What this has done is given them a legitimate
forum to try and persuade a less than fully suffisticated audience that
Shared Source is a form of Open Source, and that freedom does not matter, for
this is the substance of their presentation. It was wrong to do when their
abstract was accepted in the first place and it remains wrong to do today.
I tend to agree that one cannot easily revisit the original flawed decision
without some fallout. One cannot fix the problem effectivily by simply
extending their Q&A, which, of course, as they are now a "legitimate" speaker
at this event, they are not obligated to accept, as that would be special or
selective treatment of speakers, which also would be wrong to do.
I have come to believe a terrible error has been made, and we can choose to
have differening opinions of how this came about, but that does not change
these facts. The question is what can be done to fix this problem, and with
minimum negative impact. What I would suggest as a valid option is that the
program committee exercises it's authority to eject an inappropriate speaker
from the program. Would it have some negative impact at this stage? Yes, it
would. But I think it would be both a responsible decision since I believe
the original decision to accept their abstract was flawed, and perhaps far
less damaging than some of the other options I have heard being activily
considered.
Another option that Richard suggested would be to change the nature of this
conference and presentations appropriately. That the conference was
presented as essentially an opportunity to educate and market OS/FS ideas to
governments is clear by the forum and style of presentations sought in the
cfp. If this conference wishes instead to become some kind of acedemic event
to discuss or debate software licensing, that is certainly fine, but I think
it is far too late to do such a large change, nor fair to the other speakers
who are appearing based on the former assumption.
I am not offering any solutions in this message, but simply pointing out the
flaws with your suggestion and past comments. Having such a debate in
front of an audience that you have not yet fully educated and which has
already likely been in many intense and closed vendor sponsored conferences
promoting their message is counter-productive. All it does is send a mixed
message and dilutes the already hard work of the other speakers IMHO.
On Tuesday 11 February 2003 06:01, Bruce Perens wrote:
> Well, I certainly have no problem with tacking on a _long_ Q&A period onto
> this program. Is that what you want, and can you ask polite questions that
> they will have trouble answering without it becoming a food fight? If so,
> I will strongly advocate that to Tony and will find someone mutually
> respectable to moderate. Note that MS will be _very_ well rehearsed.
>
> I think it's extremely important that we be dignified in front of the
> expected audience of this program.
>
> Thanks
>
> Bruce
>
> ____________________________
> New Yorker Free Software Users Scene
> Fair Use -
> because it's either fair use or useless....
____________________________
New Yorker Free Software Users Scene
Fair Use -
because it's either fair use or useless....
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