UNESCO/WSIS Day II:
UNESCO/WSIS Day II:
The "Cabinet room" Board table is a mess of cables and laptops. Throughout the room are small knots of people hunched over pieces of paper engaged in vigorous debate. At the end of the Board room table four women "editors" are speaking French and English simultaneously.
Robert Guerra, who as chair of the North American Committee of the WSIS Civil Society caucus is at the centre of this chaos, is in a discussion on some finer policy point with one person, pasting and cutting paragraphs on his laptop, and issuing instructions to the editors at the other end of the table. As Evan and I enter the room Robert interrupts his multi-tasking to say definitively to us: "two sentences". This starts a debate:
"No, one sentence." says one of the editors.
"No, two words."says another.
"No, an acronym!" says another with some mirth.
"How about a few well-crafted syllables," responds Evan, smiling.
"Done!" The editors say in unison.
The room erupts in laughter.
This is the drafting room of the conference civil society communique. Robert explains they have 10 pages thus far of policy statements and principles from civil society advocates which they must whittle down to two pages and then translate before the evening ends. There will be others coming to this room after Evan and I.
Evan and I sit down to the table and begin to read the draft document. Every other paragraph has references to open source for this, free software for that, even Linux. For gender issues, for education, for ICT, for community development, for human rights, for...well you name it. Amongst all this is a blank spot which reads: "insert free software/open source software statement".
Evan and I look up from our reading at Robert. He smiles. Evan says, "I'm going to get my laptop".
It could be a long night. Sigh.
Clearly, there is larger story here.
(For more on Day II see FUD on my personal blog)
The "Cabinet room" Board table is a mess of cables and laptops. Throughout the room are small knots of people hunched over pieces of paper engaged in vigorous debate. At the end of the Board room table four women "editors" are speaking French and English simultaneously.
Robert Guerra, who as chair of the North American Committee of the WSIS Civil Society caucus is at the centre of this chaos, is in a discussion on some finer policy point with one person, pasting and cutting paragraphs on his laptop, and issuing instructions to the editors at the other end of the table. As Evan and I enter the room Robert interrupts his multi-tasking to say definitively to us: "two sentences". This starts a debate:
"No, one sentence." says one of the editors.
"No, two words."says another.
"No, an acronym!" says another with some mirth.
"How about a few well-crafted syllables," responds Evan, smiling.
"Done!" The editors say in unison.
The room erupts in laughter.
This is the drafting room of the conference civil society communique. Robert explains they have 10 pages thus far of policy statements and principles from civil society advocates which they must whittle down to two pages and then translate before the evening ends. There will be others coming to this room after Evan and I.
Evan and I sit down to the table and begin to read the draft document. Every other paragraph has references to open source for this, free software for that, even Linux. For gender issues, for education, for ICT, for community development, for human rights, for...well you name it. Amongst all this is a blank spot which reads: "insert free software/open source software statement".
Evan and I look up from our reading at Robert. He smiles. Evan says, "I'm going to get my laptop".
It could be a long night. Sigh.
Clearly, there is larger story here.
(For more on Day II see FUD on my personal blog)
posted by scottl at 2:45 PM
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