[Openstds] DCOS reporting back at Rio Internet Governance Forum

[Benoit Muller]

Susy -

 

I was surprised to read your statement posted to these lists during yesterday's reporting back session.

 

My understanding is you were supposed to report back into the Openness session the day before, which I regret you chose not to do. You instead reported yesterday, misleadingly quoting an excerpt of my intervention in the Openness session out of context and thus exceeding your role as workshop rapporteur.

 

I have asked the Secretariat to either delete your statement from the records of the IGF or include a reference to my full statement. I am copying the not perfect but good enough transcript of my intervention below.

 

I further note your redefinition of the DCOS mission to "provide government policy makers and other stakeholders with useful tools  to make informed decisions to preserve the current open architecture of the Internet and  the World Wide Web". 

 

So do I understand correctly that you are really looking at IETF and W3C standards? Could you elaborate on the "problems" you were "pleased to hear" about concerning these standards? What is the relationship between these standards' alleged problems and WIPO activities you refer to in your statement and what government decisions are you calling for?

 

I attended both your workshops and do not recall discussions about the "political dimension of standards, how technical standards  often actually set policy" . Do you have IETF and W3C standards in mind? Could you elaborate?

 

With respect to the second workshop, I do not recall the representative from Extramadura to talk about "how their e-inclusion programs relied upon open standards and why, and what  policies - such as government procurement - were put in place to support greater competition and access and lower costs." Quite on the contrary, I remember him responding to MEP Malcolm Harbour that their policy was limited to promoting open source software excluding competing technologies and products and did not focus on open standards. I also recall the representative from Sri Lanka indicating that their policy was focusing on standards broadly supported by the marketplace and precisely excluding to prescribe standards in areas were several standards are competing such as in the area of document formats.

 

While you bear the responsibility of being the only business representative to the Dynamic Coalition on Open Standards (and excluding others from participating by requesting to sign on to the narrow mission statement you have drafted based on your company's positions that are not consistent with mainstream software industry views on interoperability and standards, unless you have indeed decided yesterday to revise the Coalition's mission as per your intervention quoted above), calling on government intervention in ICT standardization without being specific neither about the alleged public interest dimension underpinning your agenda nor about what type of intervention you are seeking, I call on you to in future fully adhere to the rules and spirit of the IGF.

 

Benoit

 

 

  >>BENOÎT MÜLLER:   That's right, yes. Thank you. I would like to  

address Mr.

  Chairman Lemos' points about open source software and open standards. By way of

  background, I represent the Business Software Alliance, which is a trade

  association representing most of the leading software companies and their

  hardware partners developing and licensing software on their proprietary, open

  source and increasingly mixed models. On open source software, I think we all

  witnessed that open source has really gained -- open source is not new.  It's

  been around since the inception of the Internet.  But what has really happened

  over the recent years is that open source has really become much more

  mainstream, and has made its way into the commercial marketplace. As I

  mentioned, increasingly BSA members work on both models and a lot of products

  we all use have incorporated both open source as well as proprietary

  components. So I think in terms of the policies that address these issues, what

  is very important to remember and to note is that both or any type of software

  licensing development and licensing model is really based and facilitated by

  intellectual property.  And it is really, then, a choice for developers,

  innovators to compete to innovate both on the technical side but also on the

  business model side.  And that's what really we have witnessed over the recent

  years. So in terms, again, of public policy, with again I think intellectual

  policy pro tech is really what is available to enable all of these development

  models to flourish and to compete as opposed to preferences.  Because

  preferring one over the other limits choice, limits competition, and ultimately

  for the user, including the government user, reduces the opportunity to get

  best value for money. Because also of this increasing trend to see mixed

  solutions, and the way the marketplace has evolved where customers, including

  government customers use products on the different models and from an

  increasingly wide range of suppliers, interoperability clear is becoming more

  and more important.  And open standards are one of the ways to achieve

  interoperability. So it is absolutely true that open standards have gained

  significant interest among policymakers as well as in the marketplace.  BSA

  members are responsible for the development of the open standards, all the

  technology standards, that exist today, and it is very, very important to BSA

  members to continue, obviously, to collaborate on standardization and compete

  on implementations. What is important, again, here is interoperability is the

  goal, and actually the ultimate goal is efficient IFT infrastructure with the

  right level of interoperability.  But these are very complex and market

  sensitive issues where different interests, such as also reliability, security,

  value for money have to be balanced. So it is mostly a marketplace issue. Now,

  turning to Chairman Lemos' point about government roles on open standards, I

  think, again here governments can enable the environment, facilitate the

  industry to innovate, including in the area of intellectual property

-- sorry

  of interoperability by recognizing the value of intellectual property also in

  standards.  Mandating standards is very risky because particularly in areas

  where mandating a standard would ultimately result in mandating a particular

  product. So what I would contend is the goal for government, and particularly

  when government acts as purchaser of software, should be an efficient I.T., a

  part of which is the right level of interoperability and open standards are one

  of the means to achieve this end. 

 

 

________________________________

From: openstds-bounces at ipjustice.org [mailto:openstds-bounces at ipjustice.org] On Behalf Of Thiru Balasubramaniam
Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2007 1:27 PM
To: Open Standards DCOS; a2k at lists.essential.org; ecommerce at lists.essential.org
Subject: [Openstds] DCOS reporting back at Rio Internet Governance Forum

 

 

 

I'm Susy Struble, representing the Dynamic Coalition on Open Standards, or DCOS. Our  mission is to provide government policy makers and other stakeholders with useful tools  to make informed decisions to preserve the current open architecture of the Internet and  the World Wide Web, which together provide a knowledge ecosystems that has strongly  shaped the multiplier effect of global public goods and improved economic and social  welfare. 

 

I also represent Sun Microsystems.  

 

Our multistakeholder coalition was pleased to hear the problems in ICT standards 

discussed often this year, from the opening discussion panel to yesterday's panel on  openness. We believe these discussions will lead to greater understanding of a system  that has profound power over what we can and cannot do with ICTs and will ultimately  lead to better decision making about what changes, if any, need to be made. 

 

We hosted three sessions this year, and we also participated in the A2K coalition's 

workshop yesterday afternoon.  

 

Our first workshop on Monday focused on the intersection between open ICT standards,  development and public policy. Our panelists spoke of the economic aspects of  interoperability as well as existing and new activities in WIPO that are related to the  issue of standards and intellectual property, such as the new Development Agenda and  new work in the Standing Committee on Patents. They also spoke of how the new trend  of bi-lateral free trade agreements, which are often broader in their IP protection  requirements than WTO TRIPS, could cause problems - this is certainly an issue for  policymakers to understand. There was also some discussion of potential exceptions and  limitations to IP law, such as for reverse engineering under copyright and patent law for the purposes of ensuring interoperability in a system in which the economic network  effect is so strong. The European Committee on Interoperable Systems presented on the  role competition law and policy can play in promoting ICT interoperability. 

 

Panelists also discussed the political dimension of standards, how technical standards  often actually set policy. If you don't have a seat at the table .... well, most ICT standards  in the world are actually created by private industry consortia, just as the Business  Software Alliance representative pointed out yesterday when he said "BSA members are  responsible for the development of the open standards, all the technology standards, that  exist today." That might not be the worst model, but are there  characteristics that these  organizations and their output should have that would give them appropriate legitimacy? 

 

Our last panelist presented on the need for every IGF dynamic coalition to include 

promoting accessibility in its work, and that's certainly something our coalition will do.  ICT standards should have accessibility principles built in from the beginning. The W3C  provides a model that our coalition will explore more. 

 

We had a working meeting of the coalition on Tuesday that actually turned more into a  repeat of our Monday general session, but we did spend more time there talking about  capacity building for developing economies and the public interest in ICT standards  setting. We heard how the IETF attempts to address this problem, and I think their model  and others are something the coalition will explore over the next year. 

 

And lastly, on Tuesday afternoon we held a best practices workshop in which the 

government of Sri Lanka and a representative of the Extremadura region of Spain spoke  about how their e-inclusion programs relied upon open standards and why, and what  policies - such as government procurement - were put in place to support greater competition and access and lower costs. 

 

For anyone who wants to get involved, we invite you to vist our web site and join the mailing list at www.igf-dcos.org


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