[OS:N:] Richard Stallman on the World Summit on the Information Society

[Jeremy Hogan <jhogan redhat com>]

This is an essay from Richard Stallman on the Geneva World Summit on the
Information Society Evan posted a week or so ago.

"The World Summit on the Information Society is supposed to formulate
plans to end the "digital divide" and make the Internet accessible to
everyone on Earth.  The negotiations were completed in November, so the
big official meeting in Geneva last week was more of a trade show and
conference than a real summit meeting.

The summit procedures were designed so that non-governmental
organizations (mainly those that promote human rights and equality, and
work to reduce poverty) could attend, see the discussions, and comment. 
However, the actual declaration paid little attention to the comments
and recommendations that these organizations made.  In effect, civil
society was offered the chance to speak to a dead mike.


The summit's declaration includes little that is bold or new.  When it
comes to the question of what people will be free to do with the
Internet, it responds to demands made by various governments to impose
restrictions on citizens of cyberspace. 

Part of the digital divide comes from artificial obstacles to the
sharing of information.  This includes the licenses of non-free
software, and harmfully restrictive copyright laws.  The Brazilian
declaration sought measures to promote free software, but the US
delegation was firmly against it (remember that the Bush campaign got
money from Microsoft).  The outcome was a sort of draw, with the final
declaration presenting free software, open source, and proprietary
software as equally legitimate.  The US also insisted on praising
so-called "intellectual property rights."  (That biased term promotes
simplistic over-generalization; for the sake of clear thinking about the
issues of copyright law, and about the very different issues of patent
law, that term should always be avoided.)... "

(more)
RMS covers WSIS
http://www.newsforge.com/business/03/12/16/187234.shtml?tid=110&tid=85