Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware)
Posted Sep 2, 2009 20:04 UTC (Wed)
by Baylink (guest, #755)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Sep 2, 2009 20:25 UTC (Wed)
by justme (guest, #19967)
[Link]
Posted Sep 15, 2009 0:17 UTC (Tue)
by nandersson (guest, #54787)
[Link]
This sounds totally bogus to me and the video made no sense.
I very much doubt that Microsoft has influence in what speakers a south american university can hire.
I'm sorry - but please prove me wrong.
Posted Sep 2, 2009 20:25 UTC (Wed)
by dskoll (subscriber, #1630)
[Link]
If the university signed a contract with MSFT prohibiting *anyone* who is present at the university from criticizing Microsoft, then it's a different ballgame and the university administration should be thoroughly ashamed of itself. And all the students there should walk around with "Microsoft Sucks" T-shirts to see how MSFT and the administration react.
Posted Sep 2, 2009 20:44 UTC (Wed)
by donbarry (guest, #10485)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Sep 2, 2009 21:02 UTC (Wed)
by jkohen (subscriber, #47486)
[Link]
The organization chart can be opened by clicking on the (not so obvious)
General university contact info for Mar del Plata:
Maybe some reader from Mar del Plata can give you more information. Good
Posted Sep 2, 2009 21:02 UTC (Wed)
by job (guest, #670)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Sep 2, 2009 21:13 UTC (Wed)
by jkohen (subscriber, #47486)
[Link]
There is an official post announcing the relocation of the talk: http://losojosdetux.com.ar/2009/08/richard-stallman-en-ma...
Someone from the University's student association/group wrote something in
The saddest thing here is that this is a tax-supported public University we
Posted Sep 2, 2009 21:09 UTC (Wed)
by alvieboy (guest, #51617)
[Link] (11 responses)
Now seriously,
I am not familiar with Argentina laws, but I believe in any democratic country law would forbid these kind of agreements. It goes against one of the most important liberties: freedom of speech.
I personally do not like Stallman a lot (we diverge in some fulcral points), but I'm with him on this one.
Álvaro
Posted Sep 2, 2009 21:37 UTC (Wed)
by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106)
[Link] (3 responses)
Posted Sep 2, 2009 22:11 UTC (Wed)
by alvieboy (guest, #51617)
[Link] (2 responses)
I am not sure what's the concrete status of Universities in Argentina, but I do believe they are not private held. This enforces them to serve the population. Point one.
Freedom of speech - I am free to speak up for whatever I want albeit I might suffer consequences from it. But that comes after. No one can forbid me to expose my points of view - That's censure - the same censure US allegedly are against as a Democratic country.
I do understand your point, but I must disagree. Here where I live *no one*, not even the government, can forbid be from expressing my points of view, even if them put my own country in a "dangerous" situation. Nor can any privately held company. They can sue me after for damages, but surely not any other way. And I can go to jail too, but I have to be given the freedom to speech.
So basically this boils down to: It's up to Uni to decide whether it wants someone to speak there or not, but telling us that this breaks up some kind of [illegal?] agreement is throwing dust to people's eyes.
It boils down to politics.
Álvaro
Posted Sep 3, 2009 5:54 UTC (Thu)
by daniels (subscriber, #16193)
[Link] (1 responses)
For instance: you can't show up to your office and sit there with a megaphone loudly criticising your boss through a megaphone. That would pretty rapidly lead to termination of employment.
Likewise, the university presumably has an agreement with Microsoft prohibiting this kind of thing, with penalties (or loss of benefits) for non-compliance.
Freedom of speech means that the government can't place a blanket prohibition on saying certain things. It doesn't mean you're free to walk in anywhere at any time and say whatever you like, despite what Internet commenters everywhere seem to think.
Posted Sep 3, 2009 8:37 UTC (Thu)
by eru (subscriber, #2753)
[Link]
Based on what one sees here (possibly not the whole story, and I cannot read Spanish), the university in question seems to have failed in its mission.
When freedom of speech comes up, many are quick to point out it applies to governements and laws, but in a world where large corporations wield influence comparable to governements, it is a too narrow view.
Posted Sep 2, 2009 21:44 UTC (Wed)
by Skedyagpic (guest, #60375)
[Link] (4 responses)
At least in America, it only protects you from the government, not from private institutions. And even then, the government can damn well abbridge your free speech rights for public safety (yelling fire in a theatre) obstruction of justice (telling everyone in a bar where the DUI checkpoints are) or national security (telling terrorists the identities of counter-terrorists) just to name a few examples.
That said. Microsoft is a douchebag. The university should nullify that contract. And who said Stallman was going to criticize Microsoft there? I doubt "criticize microsoft" was on the agenda.
Posted Sep 2, 2009 22:29 UTC (Wed)
by alvieboy (guest, #51617)
[Link] (2 responses)
It does. I might suffer the consequences.
> At least in America, it only protects you from the government, not from private institutions.
How does it protect from the government ?
> And even then, the government can damn well abbridge your free speech rights for public safety (yelling fire in a theatre) obstruction of justice (telling everyone in a bar where the DUI checkpoints are) or national security (telling terrorists the identities of counter-terrorists) just to name a few examples.
Those are law violations (except maybe for the latter). There is no law depicting you cannot speak about Microsoft, is there ?
> That said. Microsoft is a douchebag. The university should nullify that contract. And who said Stallman was going to criticize Microsoft there? I doubt "criticize microsoft" was on the agenda.
Agreed, but.. I sincerely doubt there was such an agreement. At least formal.
God how I hate politic games.
Álvaro
Posted Sep 3, 2009 20:34 UTC (Thu)
by NAR (subscriber, #1313)
[Link] (1 responses)
Probably there's no explicit law that if you take the bus, but don't buy a ticket, you have to pay a penalty fee. Still, you have to pay, because by boarding the bus, you've made a contract with the bus operator that includes the fee. Similarly, it's possible that Microsoft makes a contract with a university that there will be no anti-MS talks at the university (even though probably this didn't happen, just sensationalist
Posted Sep 4, 2009 14:29 UTC (Fri)
by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167)
[Link]
This "penalty fare" law requires an application to government for each station to be covered, and extensive signage and reminder messages at every entrance, the provision of working ticket machines or 24 hour ticket staff with a monitoring system to ensure the law isn't applied if the machines break or the staff fall ill, and so on.
Previously (and still today where the train operator hasn't put all this in place and made a formal application to use the law) the only thing the inspectors could do was demand that someone travelling without a ticket bought one there and then. If the person refused, their only recourse was to try to take them to court (in most cases the individual would refuse to identify themselves and flee the scene) and even if it got to court the case was likely to fail if the defendant offered to pay the ticket price and said they'd forgotten to buy a ticket or had some other even halfway plausible excuse.
So essentially until this law was put on the books, the train operators had to rely on their passengers being either honest (and buying a ticket voluntarily) or stupid. Fortunately a lot of people are honest.
Posted Sep 2, 2009 23:31 UTC (Wed)
by PaulWay (guest, #45600)
[Link]
To paraphrase Linus: "It is not my intention to criticise Microsoft. That would be a completely unintended side-effect."
Have fun,
Paul
Posted Sep 3, 2009 2:23 UTC (Thu)
by mgh (guest, #5696)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Sep 3, 2009 7:32 UTC (Thu)
by mjthayer (guest, #39183)
[Link]
Posted Sep 2, 2009 22:19 UTC (Wed)
by beuno (guest, #44010)
[Link]
Posted Sep 3, 2009 1:42 UTC (Thu)
by dps (guest, #5725)
[Link]
Let it suffice to say that the economic conditions lead to me losing a job and the agreement associated with this says things about what I and they say about this matter. One of these terms is that the details of the agreement are confidential.
There are also certain forms of speech which are not allowed, for example incitement to murder. Various sorts of conspiracy are also not protected even in the US.
Posted Sep 3, 2009 2:28 UTC (Thu)
by coriordan (guest, #7544)
[Link]
...and one has to wonder, how many other speeches (not just by rms) have been quietly not-approved in other universities at MS's behest?
Posted Sep 3, 2009 16:45 UTC (Thu)
by errare_est (guest, #14275)
[Link]
In spanish:
Posted Sep 3, 2009 19:00 UTC (Thu)
by toxorstein (guest, #60168)
[Link] (1 responses)
Ps : by the way, sorry for my awful english.
Posted Sep 6, 2009 5:19 UTC (Sun)
by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458)
[Link]
It is more that a very unfriendly (and seemingly unofficial) student organization got into the university's administration's hair over who was to appear organizing the talk. Sure, among a lot of other grievances they complain about deals with MSFT (which I very much doubt are that different from the ones US universities sign...) and that they are enthusiastic about free software, but the blog entry talks about "revolutionary struggle against high fees" (the official UTN webpage states unambiguosly that the university doesn't charge any tuition fees) and such. AFAICS, this is not about free software, that RMS stood in the middle of it is incidental in this whole mess.
I'm not from Argentina, and don't know the situation at UTN Mar del Plata in any detail; but I lived through similar situations around here in Chile.
Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware)
Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware)
Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware)
Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware)
Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware)
Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware)
http://www.mdp.utn.edu.ar/institucional-autoridades.php
UTN Rectorado: Rector Ing. Hector C. Brotto.
UTN Mar del Plata: Directora Lic. Juana Bau.
"Última modificación" link.
Phone: +54 (223) 480-5049 / +54 (223) 480-3479 / +54 (223) 480-1220
E-mail: difusion@mdp.utn.edu.ar
luck getting anything done by public authorities in Argentina though.
What's happening?
What's happening?
only says the talk was cancelled due to external reasons. The original post
in matware mentions "deals" and not "contracts," but there is also a lack of
details.
the comment section that indicates he knows more, but he didn't give out any
details. However, he left his e-mail address in the post: Cristian Baldini
<cristianbaldini@gmail.com>
are talking about.
Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware)
Freedom of speech means that the law cannot prohibit you from speaking (per se), or punish you for it, regardless of the content of your speech. You remain free to voluntarily accept limitations on your own speech, however, as the university has done here. They are free to break that contract, but then they must forfeit the penalty they agreed to in accepting it. This would be perfectly legal in the U.S. as well as most other democratic nations—and more to the point, in all nations which prioritize liberty, which is independent of, and often opposed to, democracy.
Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware)
Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware)
Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware)
Universities are a special case! Traditionally they are supposed to encourage critical thinking and free exchange of ideas. Of course within civilized limits (no bullhorns in offices). A critical guest lecture is certainly something a good university should not ban.
Ideals of Universities
Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware)
Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware)
There is no law depicting you cannot speak about Microsoft, is there ?
Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware)
media Linux advocates thought).
explicit law
Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware)
Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware)
Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware)
Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware)
Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware)
We're lucky this was public!
Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware)
http://listas.linux.org.ar/pipermail/quilmeslug/2009-Sept...
Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware)
Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware)