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

[Georg C. F. Greve]

 || On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 16:50:24 +0100
 || Vittorio Bertola <vb at bertola.eu.org> wrote: 

 vb> Also, in your model it is unclear what do you do when an issue
 vb> spans over more than one caucus, [...] Are you claiming that no
 vb> caucus but the PCT can legitimately talk about intellectual
 vb> property?

Side note: it is one of the fundamentally important positions that the
concept which is spread by the term  "intellectual property" is flawed
and biased, which is why Civil Society has been careful to not use it
in its publications during the summit.

(Also see http://fsfeurope.org/projects/wsis/issues.en.html)


To what you said:

We are aware that the PCT issues fundamentally affect the work of many
other caucusses and working groups. That is why the PCT working group
has always sought dialog with the other working groups whenever its
issues were interlinked with the issues of other working groups.

I myself participated in such dialogs with the Human Rights Caucus,
the Indigenous Peoples Caucus (see [1]) and some regional caucusses.
Also, there are strong connections with groups like Scientific
Information and others.

Together with the other groups the PCT working group was discussing
how the issues of PCT affect their thematic areas and what position
Civil Society should take on these, which we combined with the
knowledge that people in the PCT working group brought in.

With this grown knowledge, the PCT working group has defined the
positions of Civil Society in central documents [2] and statements [3]
in the first phase of the WSIS.

[1] http://fsfeurope.org/documents/iprip.html
[2] http://fsfeurope.org/projects/wsis/cs-benchmarks.en.html
[3] http://fsfeurope.org/projects/wsis/ps-20030923.en.html


Within Civil Society at the WSIS, it is the PCT working group that is
most responsible and most representative for the issues of Patents,
Copyrights and Trademarks (PCT), Free Software and Open Standards.

As I explained above, that responsibility and representativity did not
come out of nowhere, but from steady work and dialog with other
groups.


When the time came to find representatives for the WGIG, the PCT
working group paid specific attention to come up with people who would
have expert knowledge in PCTs in general and patents in particular, as
they play a very central role in what the WGIG is dealing with.

All of them should also have a solid technical background and
understand Free Software as well as the dangers and pitfalls of
standardization, as they should be able to bring in these perspectives
and also understand the area they seek to govern.


That none of them was included in the WGIG is a serious flaw in the
legitimity of the WGIG and that it was Civil Society which excluded
them is a sign of failure in Civil Society processes.


I am glad to hear that you would have made a different decision, so
you may be feeling the heat for something that you are not accountable
for. My apologies for that.


 vb> However, this doesn't mean that the process and the choices were
 vb> illegitimate or biased or bad, since you accept to share the
 vb> "wise [wo]men"'s decisions in the very moment that you appoint
 vb> them to a nominating committee, 

I am not aware that anyone really appointed the nominating committee
or that there was a selection procedure for it. 

Here is how I remember the process --and I will readily admit that
memory can be faulty, so please feel free to tell me where your
perception is different: 

The Internet Governance Caucus originally stated [1] that it wanted
representatives from the other Working Groups because "One of the
goals for this candidate list is to make sure that all of the topical
areas that might be included in the governance debate are covered."

It also said that it would take responsibility to generate a final
list from these representatives along these lines.

After the names had been submitted and the list had been assembled, it
seems that people changed their mind and only included people from
their own thematic working group, the Internet Governance Caucus,
which they submitted to Markus Kummer and informed the plenary about
the next day. [2]

In order to make this seem more acceptable, the concept of "connector"
was invented, which was dubious to me when I first heard about it and
now is already proven to not work. 

Freely quoting Markus Kummer: "Connectors do not exist to me."

[1] http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/public/plenary/2004-September/003269.html
[2] http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/public/plenary/2004-October/003530.html


 vb> By the way, if I hadn't volunteered to spend my weekends and
 vb> nights on this task, there would have been some private sector
 vb> WGIG members quite happy to do so in their paid office time. 

It is quite enthusiastic of you to spend your weekends on this task,
although it was unnecessary. You could have informed the PCT group
directly or me about the situation and the need to come up with some
draft.

As a group, we could have identified the essentials for such a
document, priorized them and drafted the document together, saving you
at least some nights and weekends while also making sure that the PCT
working group would be involved.

That you are willing to include feedback is good and did not go
unnoticed for me. Thanks for that. The PCT working group will
contribute as well as it can.


But that does not change the basic situation that when it comes to the
actual drafting and negotiations, submitting papers from the outside,
while being a substantial amount of work, is almost entirely useless
as all of us who have been fighting for access to the working groups
during phase one of the WSIS can attest.

So when it comes to the critical moments in the WGIG that decide which
position it will finally take, the people who have been dealing with
PCTs, Free Software and Open Standards centrally for Civil Society
will not be represented.

Regards,
Georg

-- 
Georg C. F. Greve                                 <greve at fsfeurope.org>
Free Software Foundation Europe	                 (http://fsfeurope.org)
GNU Business Network                        (http://mailman.gnubiz.org)
Brave GNU World	                           (http://brave-gnu-world.org)
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