Attendance |
Number of Participants |
Number of Entities Represented |
States |
4590 |
176 |
International Organizations |
225 |
50 |
UN Bodies |
620 |
37 |
UN Agencies |
347 |
13 |
Non-Governmental Organizations |
3310 |
481 |
Business |
514 |
98 |
Guests |
471 |
|
Media |
970 |
631 |
TOTAL |
11047 |
1486 |
OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS
Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action
Political results of the actions of the
WSIS-PCT group
Recommandations recognizing the existence of the
"Free Software"
paradigm, along with, but distinct from, the "Open Source" paradigm, have been adopted by the Summit,
because of the
work ( precise wordings in bold in below ) of the WSIS-PCT group during the long preparatory
process, mostly by Georg Greve, Francis Muguet and Richard Stallman (aphabetical order ).
It is fair to say that recognition of "Free Software" would have never been
voted otherwise.
A significant achievement was the recognition that the concept of
"software model" to refer to the difference between
proprietary and Free Software. This is spreading throughout the
whole UN system now.
A great source of information concerning the lobbying
activity in support of Free Software is the
FSF - WSIS project.
The PCT group also insisted that instead of focusing on the protection of
"IPR owners", the focus should be on protecting the authors and inventors first, who most often
are transfering ( sometimes even donating ) their rights in most unequitable terms
to entities that are then making unethical and unfair use of those rights,
enlarging further the digital divide at the access to content level.
The legal value and practical usefulness of WSIS recommendations
is discussed here.
Declaration of Princple :
B3) Access to information and knowledge
27.Access to information and knowledge can be promoted by increasing awareness among all stakeholders of
the possibilities offered by different software models, including proprietary, open-source and
free software, in order to increase competition, access by users, diversity of choice, and
to enable all users to develop solutions which best meet their requirements.
Affordable access to software should be considered as an important component of a truly inclusive Information Society.
B8) Cultural diversity and identity, linguistic diversity and local content
53. The creation, dissemination and preservation of content in diverse languages and formats must be
accorded high priority in building an inclusive Information Society, paying particular attention
to the diversity of supply of creative work and due recognition of the
rights of authors and artists. It is essential to promote the production of and accessibility
to all content—educational, scientific, cultural or recreational—in diverse languages and formats.
The development of local content suited to domestic or regional needs will encourage social and
economic development and will stimulate participation of all stakeholders, including people living
in rural, remote and marginal areas.
Plan of Action :
C3. Access to information and knowledge
10 e) Encourage research and promote awareness among all stakeholders of the possibilities offered by
different software models, and the means of their creation, including proprietary,
open-source and free software, in order to increase competition, freedom of choice
and affordability, and to enable all stakeholders to
evaluate which solution best meets their requirements.
10 j)Support research and development of the design of useful instruments for all stakeholders to foster
increased awareness, assessment, and evaluation of different software models and licences,
so as to ensure an optimal choice of appropriate software that will best contribute to
achieving development goals within local conditions.
C8.Cultural diversity and identity, linguistic diversity and local content
23 o) Governments, through public/private partnerships, should promote technologies and R&D programmes
in such areas as translation, iconographies, voice-assisted services and the development
of necessary hardware and a variety of software models, including proprietary, open source software and
free software, such as standard character sets, language codes, electronic dictionaries,
terminology and thesauri, multilingual search engines, machine translation tools,
internationalized domain names, content referencing as well as general and application software.
|
Speeches by members of the WSIS-PCT group before the UN special plenary assembly
or at UN Round Tables
WSIS-PCT group Civil Society Event
Free Software, Free Society
Other Civil Society Speakers
- Civil Society Speakers Information
- Round Tables Information
- Round Tables procedures
-
Guidelines for Identification of Speakers for the Geneva Phase of WSIS
- Civil Society selection process of
speakers
- Official List of Civil Society speakers (final)
-
Wednesday, 10 December 2003: General Debate: Plenary Session 1 15:00h-21:00h
-
Thursday, 11 December 2003: General Debate: Plenary Session 2, 09:00h-13:00h
- Plenary Session 3, 14:00h-21:00h
-
Friday, 12 December 2003: General Debate: Plenary Session 4, 09:00h-13:00h
- Plenary Session 5, 14:00h-15:30h
-
Friday, 12 December 2003: Report from Multi-stakeholder Events, 15:30h-17:00h
-
"Creating Digital Opportunities" Wednesday, 10 December 2003: Roundtable 1, 17:00h-19:00h ( Richard Stallman )
- Diversity in Cyberspace
Thursday, 11 December 2003: Roundtable 2, 11:00h-13:00h ( Lawrence Lessig )
-
"ICT as a tool to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals"
Thursday, 11 December 2003: Roundtable 3, 15:00h-17:00h
Other Related Civil Society Events
- Events (General)
-
Software libre para una soc. del conoc. igualitaria y multicultural
Tuesday 09 December 2003, 13h30 to 18h00, Room T, Palexpo
-
World Forum on Communications Rights
Thursday 11 December 2003, 09h30 to 20h00, Mont-Blanc, Palexpo (
CommunicationRights.org
- Session 2 : Communications, Copyright, and Trade:
(Resisting) the Enclosure of the Global Knowledge Commons
)
-
Faire le choix des logiciels libres : une contrainte ou une solution ? ( Organisation internationale de la Francophonie )
Conference Centre, Saleve, December 11, 2003, 09h30 to 12h30
-
Freedom in E-culture-Experiences & models (Comunica-ch Ynternet Panel)
Conference Centre, Saleve, December 11, 2003, 13h30 to 16h30
CIVIL SOCIETY DECLARATION
"Shaping Information Societies
for Human Needs"
-
Official Text (PDF, English, French, Spanish)
-
Final Draft version
- WSIS-online : CS Declaration
( English
[HTML,
HTML,
Word ]
,French [HTML,word], Spanish[HTML,word] )
- Endorsement mailing list
To endorse the declaration, send a message to
[email protected].
CIVIL SOCIETY STATEMENTS & PRESS RELEASES
SOME PICTURES
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