[WSIS CS-Plenary] UN Official Document System is online

[Jonathan Cave]

Thanks to Rik for a balanced and useful intervention and to all others 
participating.

There are lots of people/entities cozying up to M$ - this is part of the 
'natural' winner-takes-all dynamics of proprietary standards (early leads 
are hard to overcome and can become de facto standards). It is certainly a 
conscious part of M$ strategy.

 From the European perspective, it is interesting that the IE-free version 
of Windows required by the settlement with M$ probably would not work with 
ODS either.

But the bottom line is network externalities: the more who use this 
'standard' the more dominant it becomes. This can justify lots of apparent 
altruism: giving SW to 'public' organisations, schools etc.; cooperatively 
developing new applications for 'worthy' recipients; endowing 
higher-education institutions and research; and even turning a blind eye to 
'IPR violations' - as long as the knock-on effects of these 'loss leaders' 
bring lots of new customers who have to interact with the recipients of 
this generosity, it pays for itself.

Rik is absolutely right about the values of openness, transparency and 
involving users in product development. Perhaps this could be ca concrete 
CS recommendation for eGovernment and eParticipation initiatives that use 
the Internet.

Cheers,

J.

At 15:42 06/01/2005, you wrote:
>Rik, thanks as always for your wonderful help "on the ground." Just a 
>comment regarding the UN agencies making themselves vulnerable to 
>accusations that they are cozy with Microsoft: In the interest of 
>transparency it might be best to just acknowledge that they *are* cozied 
>up and cozying up to Microsoft. Whether or not this accounts for the 
>present problem may be another question, but as the saying goes, if it 
>looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Lisa
>
>
>>Robert, et al,
>>
>>I'm already on this and am bringing some people at the UN in the loop.  I 
>>am happy to compile people's feedback and suggestions and put it to the 
>>UN technical people directly.
>>
>>I urge folks for the time being not to start a media-flurry on this 
>>before we get some kind of response from the UN.  If they ignore or 
>>dismiss our criticisms then we can start taking to the airwaves.  My 
>>guess is that the German coalition folks have already alerted their media 
>>contacts.
>>
>>The truly sad part about this is that if the UN IT people had 
>>beta-released this and asked for volunteers to run it through its paces, 
>>folks would have jumped at the chance to help out. Instead they put out a 
>>product that doesn't work for a large population of users.  So they make 
>>themselves vulnerable to criticism and accusations of cozying up to Microsoft.
>>
>>Rik Panganiban
>>
>>On Jan 6, 2005, at 10:06 AM, Robert Guerra wrote:
>>
>>>trying to be productive...
>>>
>>>Any way we can communicate the results of our "tests" to the relevant UN 
>>>Officials so that they can perhaps try to fix it ASAP.
>>>
>>>If they can not, then i would suggest that we start the process of 
>>>formulating a formal press release to inform the world about the lack of 
>>>standards..
>>>
>>>regards
>>>
>>>Robert
>>>
>>>At 3:41 PM +0100 1/6/05, Vittorio Bertola wrote:
>>>>Georg C. F. Greve ha scritto:
>>>>>  rp> Regards to all and Happy Transparent and Accessible New Year.
>>>>>
>>>>>I just tried this and had problems actually getting to the documents,
>>>>>others have reported similar problems with non-IE browsers on Windows
>>>>>and Macintosh. It appears the site is running on Microsoft and is
>>>>>using Microsoft-only functions for Javascript.
>>>
>>>--
>>>###
>>>Robert Guerra <rguerra at privaterra.org>
>>>Privaterra - <http://www.privaterra.org>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>Plenary mailing list
>>>Plenary at wsis-cs.org
>>>http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/plenary
>>>
>>===============================================
>>RIK PANGANIBAN       Communications Coordinator
>>Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations 
>>(CONGO)
>>web: http://www.ngocongo.org
>>email: rik.panganiban at ngocongo.org
>>mobile: (+1) 917-710-5524
>>
>>** Please note CONGO's new mailing address: CP 50, 1211 Genéve 20, 
>>Switzerland.  Our physical office address is 11, Avenue De La Paix, 1st 
>>Floor, 1202 Genéve, Switzerland. **
>
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