[Ecommerce] Notes on WSIS prep meeting in W.DC, February 10, 03 (Open source question)

[Manon Anne Ress]

Please find a 1) short summary of my informal notes from the Feb 10, 
2003 ITA meeting in Washington, DC; 2) a few links for more information; 
3)Agenda of the meeting and 4) WSIS Timeline.  Note that Ambassador 
Gross is welcoming comments, send to: wsis@state.gov.
(Let me know if you'd like more details.)

1) 2d International Telecommunications Advisory Committee (ITAC) on the 
World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) February 10, 2003 3-5pm 
at National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Building, Washington, DC

Ambassador David Gross opened the 2nd meeting of a series planned to 
prepare for WSIS.  He encouraged people to sent written comments to the 
website.  He announced future meetings in Geneva (February 17) and in 
Beirut and listed the regional meetings that just took place in 
Bucharest, Tokyo and the Dominican Republic.  In Geneva there will be 
committee meetings following the first 2 days of roundtables. The 3 
themes are infrastructure, human capacity building and security.

Richard Beaird (State) reviewed key documents: the Tokyo Declaration, 
the Bavaro Declaration and the Chairman "non-paper."   According to Dick 
Beaird, there's a general consensus emerging from regional meetings. 
The 4 "industrial sector meetings" (I quote) focused on some common 
themes.  They seem to agree on "competition and privatization, and 
exceptions were few and depended on "models" selected."  However, there 
were more "nuances" regarding:
Access to technology and digital divide.  How to promote access in rural 
areas, not only for telephone but also email? The second theme is the 
open source issue.  He stated that the US "insisted" on adding "as 
appropriate" in the Tokyo Declaration.  For Beaird the "market should 
decide where open source is appropriate and "there's also a cost issue 
linked to the compatibility between proprietary and open-source."
Another very important "emerging theme" with nuances is network 
security.  He also talked about "local contents" and how each region is 
different "this diversity has to be captured."  Finally, he talked about 
"good governance" and how the extension of broadband can bring social 
services to citizens.  In Bavaro there was discussion of the role of 
government using ICT, some think that "government should lead".  Until 
recently, he said, it was about b2b and SME but now it's also linked to 
government services.

Paul Uhlir, The National Academies of Sciences (NAS) commented on the 
"emerging consensus" and asked  "what is the role of the research 
community in all of this?"  He spoke of the upcoming international 
symposium on "Open Access and the Public Domain in Digital Data and 
Information for Science" which will be held in Paris on March 10 - 11, 
2003. Open to the public, see: http://www.codata.org/03march/index.html

The Q&A included questions or comments by Bill Drake (U of M) Miriam 
Shapiro, Ruchika Agrawal(EPIC), David Fares - USCIB, Marilyn Cade - 
AT&T, Marilyn Greene - World Press Freedom Committee, Dick Greene (DOC), 
Ken Jarboe - Athena Alliance, a Georgetown Law Student and others.

I asked how and why in (1)"Priorities areas for action" of the Tokyo 
declaration language that had called for open source to be "supported" 
was changed to: "Development and deployment of open source software 
should be *encouraged, as appropriate*, as should open standards for ICT 
networking."

In his reply, Ambassador Gross described the document as "a consensus 
document, a non binding document" that should not change US policy...but 
procures views on the advantages and disadvantages.  M. Beaird explained 
that "there are circumstances where proprietary software is appropriate 
and the market place should make the decision.  "The US is concerned 
about mandating either approaches...against flexibility important for 
the developing world...there is no "one" model."  In Tokyo, the argument 
was about changing a text that was "mandating open-source... which is 
against US policy"


2) More on WSIS at:
http://www.state.gov/e/eb/cip/wsis/
http://www.state.gov/e/eb/adcom/c668.htm
To be added to the WSIS list serve write to:
Anne Jillson at: JillsonAD@state.gov

3) AGENDA International Telecommunications Advisory Committee (ITAC)
Meeting on World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)
February 10, 2003, 3-5 PM
  National Academy of Sciences Building

AGENDA

1.	Introduction / Opening Remarks
2.	Review of Key Documents
-	Tokyo Declaration
-	Bavaro Declaration
-	PrepCom II Chairman Adama Samassékou's non-paper
-	PrepCom II Time Management Plan
3.	Comments on Key Documents
4.	Future Meetings

4) WSIS Timeline


May 2002			African Regional Conference, Bamako
July 2002 	 		WSIS PrepCom I
Sept./Oct. 2002    		ITU Plenipotentiary Conference
Sept./Oct. 2002			Third mtg - UN ICT Task Force
November 7-9, 2002		Pan European Regional Conference, Bucharest
--------
Dec. 9 - Jan 15, 2003		UNESCO: On-line Forum for Civil Society WSIS 
Preparations

January 13-15, 2003		Asian Regional Conference, Tokyo
January 29-31, 2003		Latin America and Caribbean Conference
February 17-28, 2003		WSIS PrepCom II
February 21-23, 2003		Fourth Mtg - UN ICT Task Force
March 10-11, 2003	International Symposium on Open Access and the Public 
Domain in Digital Data and Information for Science, Paris
September 15-26, 2003	WSIS PrepCom III
December 10-12, 2003	World Summit on the Information Society, Geneva








-- 
Manon Anne Ress
Consumer Project on Technology
www.cptech.org
PO Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
manon.ress@cptech.org, voice: 1.202.387.8030, fax: 1.202.234.5176