Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware) [LWN.net]

Microsoft contract forces cancellation of Stallman talk in Argentina (Matware)

Posted Sep 3, 2009 20:34 UTC (Thu) by NAR (subscriber, #1313)
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)

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 ~~media~~ Linux advocates thought).

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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.