This issue has absolutely nothing to do with free speech or censorship. This is a private conference being held to promote Open Source/ Free Software. It's like a big commercial. Microsoft doesn't allow Red Hat to have a few seconds of their TV ads to promote Linux. And anyone who thinks that this will give the OpenSource crowd an opportunity to corner M$ with embarassing questions is to be honest just crazy. M$ is a lot of things, but they aren't stupid. They will be very well be prepared and I would be surprised if anyone could ask them a questions that they weren't prepared for. Inviting M$ to this conference is like (forgive the cheesy anolgy) a a herd of sheep inviting a wolf into their pen, so that he can explain why he wants to eat them. There is a time for giving all sides a voice, this conference just isn't it.
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This issue has absolutely nothing to do with free speech or censorship. This is a private conference being held to promote Open Source/ Free Software. It's like a big commercial. Microsoft doesn't allow Red Hat to have a few seconds of their TV ads to promote Linux. And anyone who thinks that this will give the OpenSource crowd an opportunity to corner M$ with embarassing questions is to be honest just crazy. M$ is a lot of things, but they aren't stupid. They will be very well be prepared and I would be surprised if anyone could ask them a questions that they weren't prepared for. Inviting M$ to this conference is like (forgive the cheesy anolgy) a a herd of sheep inviting a wolf into their pen, so that he can explain why he wants to eat them. There is a time for giving all sides a voice, this conference just isn't it.