WSIS delegates fail to agree on open-source 'support' Draft was changed after objections by U.S.

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: "Robert J. Berger" <rberger () ibd com>
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 11:57:41 +0900
To: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>, Dave Farber IP
<dave () farber net>
Subject: Infoworld: WSIS delegates fail to agree on open-source 'support'
Draft was changed after objections by U.S.

Adam Peake and Izumi Aizu from Glocom were some of the local organizers here
in Japan of the WSIS meeting. Adam was one of the main people working to get
the Open Source message in the document...

It was covered in today's Slashdot:

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/01/27/2045236&mode=nested&tid=117&;
tid=103

An entertaining version of the story is at:

http://pigdog.org/auto/digital_gar_gar_gar/link/2781.html


Here's the inforworld version:

WSIS delegates fail to agree on open-source 'support'
Draft was changed after objections by U.S.
 
http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/01/15/030115hnwsisos_1.html
 
By  Martyn Williams January 15, 2003

TOKYO -- A three-day meeting that brought together Asian governments,
organizations, companies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) ended
Wednesday morning with the approval of a declaration that, among other
things, calls for encouraging the development of open-source software. A
draft of the declaration had called for open source to be "supported" but
was changed after objections from the U.S. government delegation late
Tuesday night.

The U.S. opposition was largely perceived to be support for its domestic
software companies and in particular Microsoft, said officials from other
governments on the sidelines of the conference on Wednesday. After a short
debate with a number of countries, including Pakistan, that wanted the
original language to remain, all sides finally reached agreement and the
declaration was changed to read: "Development and deployment of open-source
software should be encouraged, as appropriate, as should open standards for
ICT (information and communications technology) networking."

The change was one of a number made during a late-night session at the end
of the second day of the Asian Regional Conference. The event is one of a
number of conferences being held around the world to solicit regional input
for the World Summit on the Information Society, a government-leader level
U.N. summit that will take place in December this year in Geneva,
Switzerland, and in Tunis in 2005.

At the meeting, representatives of 48 countries, 21 international
organizations, 53 private sector entities and 116 NGOs discussed a number of
issues related to the information society and debated over the content of
the final output of the meeting, a document called the Tokyo Declaration.
The declaration will go forward to a meeting in Geneva next month and bring
together participants from around the world as part of the large planning
process that must precede the December summit.

The declaration touched on a wide range of issues related to the information
society and included a call for greater information security, a balance
between content owners and users in the area of intellectual property
rights, and more work on the digital divide.

The lack of awareness of the need for information security was recognized as
a weakness for the Asia-Pacific region. The declaration touched upon the
need for greater awareness of cybercrime and cyberterrorism while
recognizing that equal and fair access to information technology is also
important.

"Special attention should be paid to the fact that ICTs can potentially be
used for purposes that are inconsistent with the objectives of maintaining
international stability and security, and may adversely affect the integrity
of the infrastructure within states, to the detriment of their security in
both civil and military fields," it said.

In the area of copyright, the declaration recognized the "vital role" that
intellectual property rights play in innovation in software, e-commerce and
related areas, but also noted the need to strike a fair balance between such
rights and the interests of users.

The same two areas were identified by a Japanese government official as
possible areas of which participants to WSIS in December will agree require
the creation of a legal and policy framework that spans international
borders. Agreement on the need to create a global legal and policy framework
for the information society is one of several goals already identified for
the summit.

"I think the big issues that need to be tackled are intellectual property
rights and information security," said Yoshio Tsukio, vice minister for
policy coordination and Japan's Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs,
Posts and Telecommunications (MPHPT).

The conference heard more pledges to bridge the digital divide and several
points in the declaration focused on extending the benefits of the
information society to the poor and otherwise disadvantaged.

"The digital divide unfortunately is widening," said Kim Hak Su, the
executive secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for
the Asia-Pacific and the U.N.'s highest ranking official in Asia.

"It is not only between the countries but within the countries and between
generations and the able-bodied and disabled. The international community is
trying to help to assist those countries who do not have a national strategy
and a national political commitment is also essential. Also, the Government
of Japan is offering a substantial ODA (overseas development aid) package to
developing member countries," he told IDG News Service.

"This digital divide will be with us for some years to come and we have to
work very hard. There is no magic formula but we should work hard," he said.
Kim admitted that promises to help have been made before and the problem
often comes down to paying for things. "We need the private sector to do
many things. Governments cannot do everything anymore."

"We need more money and more discussion but Tokyo has set the direction," he
said. "The direction is right and WSIS could be important because political
commitment is also important."

Speaking after the event, a number of NGOs that had taken part in the summit
said they were broadly satisfied with the outcome but had hoped for greater
commitment in a number of areas such as a social justice. They were
satisfied with the inclusion of a reference to human rights in the
declaration, despite some attempts to change it, they said.

The groups also repeated protests over the deregistration of NGOs from
Taiwan on Tuesday as the result of repeated protests by the Chinese
government delegation.

"There is discrimination against the principles of WSIS for a comprehensive
inclusion of all stakeholders in the information society including civil
society, which includes Taiwanese NGOs as well," said Chuang Chiting, the
international affairs director of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights.

"As Taiwan is a very powerful ICT country and it provides major input to the
information society, we do hope our voices can be heard and be constructive
towards a better future in the international community," she said. The
representatives were allowed to stay at the meeting under the affiliation of
a Japanese NGO.

 
Martyn Williams is a Tokyo correspondent for the IDG News Service, an
InfoWorld affiliate.
 

 
 
-- 
Robert J. Berger - Internet Bandwidth Development, LLC.
In Tokyo as Glocom visiting research fellow through April 2003
Cell: +81 80-3121-6128 Work: +81 3-5411-6613 http://www.glocom.ac.jp
eFax: +1-408-490-2868 rberger () glocom ac jp rberger () ibd com


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