[WSIS CS-Plenary] Virtual Participation - Establishment of working group?

[Vittorio Bertola]

Robert Guerra ha scritto:
> we can take that question further and ask if it will run on my Atari 64, 
> my Apple II or my original IBM PC? 

Pardon me, but the requirements listed here:
http://www.marratech.com/support/sysreq_pro.shtml
are quite stricter than "having a less-than-15-year-old PC".

For example, even in a developed country like Italy, my mother wouldn't be 
able to connect - she only has an old Pentium I PC with Windows 98; so no 
open source stuff, but yet insufficient for the system you are proposing, 
even if it's definitely enough to browse the Web and read e-mail and stay 
connected to the world.

It seems to me that you are assuming that everyone here as a < 2-year-old 
PC, broadband connection, money to buy a webcam, and the ability to use 
complex videoconferencing mechanisms. This is not true! So I can't see why 
we shouldn't limit ourselves to standard and easy to use systems such as 
Web, E-mail and IRC (which still is the most widely available and 
band-saving chat system on the Internet) which are available on almost any 
PC and operating system in a number of different implementations.

Please don't misunderstand me, I am not an open source extremist and I 
don't have anything against your initiative, but still don't see the 
advantage in using systems that could offer some glittering extras, but 
will exclude a non trivial number of plenary members, or force them to 
long downloads.
-- 
.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo vb.
Vittorio Bertola - vb [a] bertola.eu.org
http://bertola.eu.org/    <-- Vecchio sito, nuovo toblog!