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

[Richard Stallman]

    We don't want the headlines to be "Academic freedom is OK for controversial
    racists but not for Microsoft,"  "Whatever happened to the first amendment
    -- George Washington University charged with bias against unpopular views
    at conference,"  "Microsoft is right, Free Software is UnAmerican charge
    Microsoft supporters in Congress after Microsoft denied right to speak at
    free/open-source software conference,"

Advocates must never be timid about what their opponents will say
about them.  That way lies fatal weakness.  These accusations would be
easily refuted, and we will refute them.

                                            "Government employees ordered to
    withdraw from conference committee and drop involvement with Free Software
    after controversy over rejection of Microsoft as speaker at conference."

If they did, we could use it to great effect: the US government
insists that free software events must offer a platform to a convicted
corporate felon.  It would play especially well overseas where people
increasingly hate the US government for many reasons.

I wish that the opposition inside the US government were so overt.