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Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware)Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware)Posted Sep 2, 2009 21:44 UTC (Wed) by Skedyagpic (guest, #60375)In reply to: Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware) by alvieboy Parent article: Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware)
'Freedom of speech' does not mean you can say anything at any time anywhere.
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.
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Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware) Posted Sep 2, 2009 22:29 UTC (Wed) by alvieboy (subscriber, #51617) [Link]
> 'Freedom of speech' does not mean you can say anything at any time anywhere.
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
Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware) Posted Sep 3, 2009 20:34 UTC (Thu) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link] There is no law depicting you cannot speak about Microsoft, is there ?
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
explicit law Posted Sep 4, 2009 14:29 UTC (Fri) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]
Interestingly it took an explicit law in the UK to make it possible to fine people for travelling on the train without a ticket.
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.
Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware) Posted Sep 2, 2009 23:31 UTC (Wed) by PaulWay (✭ supporter ✭, #45600) [Link]
> And who said Stallman was going to criticize Microsoft there? I doubt "criticize microsoft" was on the agenda.
To paraphrase Linus: "It is not my intention to criticise Microsoft. That would be a completely unintended side-effect."
Have fun,
Paul
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