From eddank at aya.yale.edu Wed Jan 17 21:11:41 2007 From: eddank at aya.yale.edu (Eddan Katz) Date: Wed Jan 17 21:22:51 2007 Subject: [Wsis-pct] Yale ISP's Open Standards International Symposium (OSIS) Message-ID: OPEN STANDARDS INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM (OSIS) AT YALE LAW SCHOOL The Information Society Project at Yale Law School cordially invites you to attend the Open Standards International Symposium (OSIS), scheduled for February 3, 2007, at Yale Law School in New Haven, CT. Anyone interested in attending is encouraged to register at http://research.yale.edu/isp/eventsosis.html. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) standards are increasingly serving as a locus of political and economic controversy. Technical standards, though not made by legislatures or elected representatives, increasingly mediate between prevailing social tensions such as access to information versus property rights and law enforcement versus individual civil liberties. Economically, the intellectual property arrangements underlying standards determine the competitive openness of certain technology markets and intersect directly with global trade conflicts. Technically, recent interoperability problems in government services like disaster response have prompted renewed political interest in open standards around the globe. Despite the significance of open standards in the global ICT context, even the meaning of openness is a contentious topic. OSIS will be the first academic conference to examine concepts of open standards in the larger context of technology, markets, politics, and law. During this ground-breaking symposium, a distinguished international group of technologists, policymakers, entrepreneurs, executives, lawyers, computer scientists, and activists will map out the terrain of open standards issues in four panels: (1) Technology; (2) Economics; (3) Politics; and (4) Law. For a full conference description and to register for the event, please visit the symposium web site at http://research.yale.edu/isp/eventsosis.html. Confirmed speakers include: An Baisheng, Deputy Division Chief, WTO Department, Ministry of Commerce, People's Republic of China Jack Balkin, Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment, and Director, Information Society Project, Yale Law School Daniel Benoliel, ISP Fellow Alumnus, Information Society Project, Yale Law School Vittorio Bertola, At-Large Advisory Committee, ICANN; President & CTO, Dynamic Fun Sherrie Bolin, President and CEO, The Bolin Group Geoffrey Bowker, Professor & Executive Director, Center for Science, Technology, and Society, Santa Clara University Carl Cargill, Chief Standards Officer, Sun Microsystems, Inc. Laura DeNardis, Visiting Fellow, Information Society Project, Yale Law School Alexander Galloway, Assistant Professor, Culture & Communication, New York University Linda Garcia, Professor & Director, Communication, Culture & Technology, Georgetown University Rishab Ghosh, Senior Researcher, United Nations University, Maastricht Economic and Social Research Training Centre on Innovation & Technology Robin Gross, Executive Director, IP Justice Eddan Katz, Executive Director, Information Society Project, and Lecturer in Law, Yale Law School Ken Krechmer, Fellow, International Center for Standards Research, University of Colorado, Boulder John Morris, Director, Internet Standards, Technology, and Policy Project, Center for Democracy and Technology John Palfrey, Executive Director, Berkman Center for Internet & Society; Clinical Professor of Law, Harvard Law School Huang Rengang, Minister Counsellor of the Permanent Mission to the WTO, People's Republic of China Manon Ress, Director, Information Society Projects, Consumer Project on Technology Robert Shaw, Deputy Head, Strategy and Policy Unit, International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Peter Strickx, General Manager, Architecture & Standards, Fedict, Belgium Bob Sutor, Vice President, Standards and Open Source, IBM Corp. Natalie Sunker, Republic of South Africa, Deputy Director, Intellectual Property, Policy & Legislation, Department of Trade and Industry Andrew Updegrove, Partner, Gesmer Updegrove LLP John Wilson, Lead Economist, Development Economics Research Group, International Trade, The World Bank From muguet at mdpi.net Sun Jan 21 05:10:19 2007 From: muguet at mdpi.net (Dr. Francis MUGUET) Date: Sun Jan 21 05:39:15 2007 Subject: [Wsis-pct] Voeux de l'Internet 2007 Paris 23 Janvier 2007 Message-ID: <45B2E7AB.7040106@mdpi.net> English / Fran?ais Dear friends This message is mostly in French, since it is addressed mainly to people in France, but all WSIS Civil Society passing by in Paris are also invited. see http://voeuxinter.net It is a ceremony of the "Best Wishes of the Internet", we are very lucky to held this event in an historic location in the center of Paris. Tuesday 23, evening at the Invalides. Online registration is compulsory. Sorry, there is no English version for the site, ask for help with a french speaking person. This announcement is quite late since we had a a legal fight ( that we won ) against an entity that claimed to have the 'Voeux de l'Internet" trademark to forbid us to organize our event, but luckyly this entity had just trademarked the acronym !. Crazy Isn't ? There is an agreement so that the entity can withdraw its claim without damaging its reputation and I cannot say more. Since the site of the event is only in French, I am going to give more details in English now : In the "Political" category, we selected S?gol?ne Royal, the center left candidate ( currently leading in the polls for the presidential election in France ) as the recipient of the "e-toile d'or" ( a pun that I cannot translate in english ) i for a precise reason : the joint statement she signed with Richard Stallman. This joint statement includes the recognition of the four freedoms of Free Software, something, that to my knowledge, no politician likely to become president, in Europe has ever done, and also to pledge to apply the WSIS recommendation concerning access to scientific information. By giving her the "e-toile d'or" ( that might benefit her for her election, we are not naive) we are reminding her of this statement, and give a signal to other politicians to become more proactive for free software and open access. It also help to get the Civil Society a higher level of recognition, althoug we did not have time to be as inclusive as we would have wanted, especially within the Free Software community in France, because of lack of time because of this silly legal conflict that we won but at a considerable loss of time and energy. In the business category, we selected a free software entrepreneur Alexander Zapolsky who has been the key actor towards the creation by the government of a "Competitivity Consortium for Free Software". and now : My Best Wishes for a successfull year for Free Software, as hopefully more and more people are going to say "Hasta la Vista" to a new OS whose name you have guessed... All the best Francis ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Chers amis, Il nous est arriv? une histoire assez folle qui explique cette annonce relativement tardive. En bref, une entit?e pr?tendait avoir la marque "Voeux de l'Internet" et nous emp?cher de tenir l'?venement que Denis Marion et moi avons organis? depuis 2004. Il s'est trouv? que cette entit? ne possedait en fait que les initiales, ce qui nous a sauv? ! et nous avons pu d?poser la marque textuelle compl?te et organiser l'?v?nement. Je vous passe les d?tails et la longue negociation avec cette entit?e dont je ne peux vous r?veler le nom : Voici le "communiqu? officiel" ----------------- Suite ? un imbroglio juridique, concernant la marque "Voeux de l'Internet", nous avons du attendre qu'un accord soit en passe d'?tre conclu avant de contacter des sponsors et ensuite d'annoncer publiquement l'?v?nement. Suite ? cet accord amiable, nous avons pris l'engagement de ne pas en diffuser en Les d?tails, et ni de faire de plus amples commentaires. Pour information et pour vous rassurer, TFT, l'association organisatrice au niveau ?v?nementiel, est titulaire de la marque "Voeux de l'Internet" comme vous pouvez le constater en interrogeant le site de l'INPI ou http://www.societe.com. On peut consid?rer, sauf ?v?nement exceptionnel ext?rieur, que cet ?pisode juridique est clos. -------------------------- La le?on g?n?rale de cette histoire est que la Soci?t? Civile ne va bient^ot plus pouvoir organiser un ?v?nement sans avoir ? d?poser la marque correspondante... c'est un d?lire due ? la nouvelle Bulle 2.0, et c'est clairement un d?tournement des droits des marques, un droit commercial, qui se justifie, au niveau soci?tal, que si on vends des chaussures ou des lessives. Toujours ? cause de ces probl?mes juridiques, nous n'avons eu le temps d'annoncer la premi?re ?dition des Voeux Europe qui s'est tenu ? Strasbourg en petit comit?. Ce fut n?amoins un test positif, et l'ann?e prochaine, on fera une ?dition vraiment europ?enne, et pas seulement avec des d?put?s europeens. Ces Voeux nous donnent aussi l'occasion de faire du lobbying aupr?s du Parlement, ce qui est utile. Si des personnes veulent organiser des voeux de l'Internet ailleurs en province, dans d'autres pays ?urop?eens ou dans le monde, nous les y encourageons, car l'exp?rience de ces voeux, manifestation tr?s modeste au d?part, nous a montr? que le pouvoir politique ( mais encore trop le secteur priv?... ) tenait ? ^etre distingu? par des composantes de la Soci?t? Civile. Toujours ? cause de ces probl?mes juridiques qui nous ont pris la t^ete, nous n'avons eu le temps d'^etre aussi inclusif que nous l'aurions souhait? au niveau de la communaut? du logiciel libre en France pour la pr?paration de cet ?v?nement qui met en avant le logiciel libre. On va esseyez de rattraper le temps dans les derniers jours qui nous restent... Voici l'invitation en attach? en HTML. Si pour une raison ou pour une autre votre lecteur de courriel n'affichait pas correctement l'invitation allez directement sur le site. http://voeuxinter.net D?tail IMPORTANT: pour l'inscription en ligne obligatoire, le code d'authentification est : SMSI-PCT venez nombreux et faites venir ! A bient^ot j'esp?re pour nous souhaiter la bonne ann?e, et une bonne ann?e pour l'internet, et une soci?t? de l'information libre ! Francis -- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/wsis-pct/attachments/20070121/6540a8d3/2007-france-message-clair.html From correia.rui at gmail.com Wed Jan 24 09:00:48 2007 From: correia.rui at gmail.com (Rui Correia) Date: Wed Jan 24 09:08:06 2007 Subject: [Wsis-pct] FW: [PEN-L] Free software for a free Venezuela Message-ID: <003101c73f8d$c5f784a0$f3d3fea9@Laptop> Courtesy of Stan Goff, Insurgent American: www.insurgentamerican.net http://www.insurgentamerican.net/2007/01/23/free-software-supports-bolivaria ns/ Free software liberates Venezuela The free software revolution comes to Venezuela By David Sugar <...> I had the good fortune to meet the current director general of SAPI, Eduardo Sam?n, while I was in Maracaibo. He has very different ideas for the purpose of SAPI. He is a well known internationalist, and had been a key person in establishing the program for promoting a developing nations agenda within WIPO. Rather than creating new intellectual restrictions, Sam?n proposes that the mission of SAPI should instead become that of promoting ?Intellectual Prosperity? by creating laws and services that promote the ability to share knowledge as the common heritage of all mankind. Sam?n proposes that the mission of SAPI should instead become that of promoting ?Intellectual Prosperity? by creating laws and services that promote the ability to share knowledge as the common heritage of all mankind Assuming that private corporate interests in the developed world today do succeed in the great program of owning what people are allowed to think, it is very possible that places like Venezuela will become the new leading nations in science and technology. How oil fuels the Bolivarian Revolution Maracaibo is also the heartland of the oil industry, and the state run oil company, PDVSA. Oil companies are also traditionally conservative in nature. However, PDVSA also is a contrast, as both the primary wealth producing institution in the country, and the strongest source of support for President Hugo Chavez?s revolutionary changes. I met a number of PDVSA oil workers, who seemed well represented among the ranks of PDVSA management. I also had the chance to talk over lunch with one of their directors, Socorro Hernendez, as well as Jose Luis Rey, whose renoun is both as a skilled hacker and financial genius who was involved in helping rebuild the financial trading systems that were sabotaged in 2003. Today, the state-run oil company is a major backer of the free software movement (software libre) in Venezuela and is a major sponsor of the 3rd International Forum on Free Knowledge, which is what brought me to Maracaibo. Every question related to the use of free software in Venezuela, and to how the Bolivarian revolution started, seems to come back to PDVSA and the worker oil lockout in 2002. More: http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/professional_services_venezuela ?page=0%2C1