Re: eGovOS conference in D.C.; I'm not attending that

[Richard Stallman]

    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.