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Commercial Open Source Software

The third Internet Governance Forum (IGF) meeting will be held at Hyderabad on the 3-6 December 2008, a draft programme is available and open for discussion. Comments submitted to the IGF Website by 1 May will be reflected in a revised version that will be issued as a conference room paper at the consultations on 13 May.

1 Introduction

This paper aims to provide an input into the open round of consultations on 13 May 2008 to discuss programme and agenda for the third meeting of the IGF in Hyderabad. It gives a first draft programme outline, focusing on structure rather than content. The draft programme outline tries to make best possible use of the facilities that are available a..t the conference venue. It also takes into account the fact that participation at the first meetings in Athens and Rio de Janeiro exceeded expectations and that as many, if not more, people are expected to attend the Hyderabad meeting.

The paper is conceived a rolling document. Comments submitted to the IGF Web site by 1 May will be reflected in a revised version that will be issued as a conference room paper at the consultations on 13 May.

2 Basic structure for the Hyderabad meeting

The proposed meeting structure builds on the successes of the Athens and Rio de Janeiro meetings and takes into account the comments made in the stocktaking process, both on-line and at the meetings in Geneva on 26-28 February. As was the case in Rio de Janeiro, the Hyderabad meeting will not be merely repeating the structure of the inaugural meeting, but will have its own character and will go beyond the formats used previously. The informal, interactive multistakeholder format was generally seen as one of the key factors of the success of the first two meetings and should be maintained as a guiding principle. Participation will follow the format used at the previous meetings and all entities and persons with proven expertise and experience in matters related to Internet governance may apply to register as participants.

The basic format of the previous meetings, with main sessions and workshops, should be maintained. The five broad themes – access, openness, security, diversity, and critical Internet resources – will be retained but not necessarily as themes for the main sessions. The point was made that the general issues had been effectively covered during the previous two IGF meetings and that the sessions in Hyderabad should be more focused.

Technorati Tags: IGF, Internet Governance Forum, Hyderabad

The second Internet Governance Forum (IGF) hosted by the United Nations is officially over.

The IGF, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from 12–15 November 2007, was aimed to advance discussion on issues related to Internet governance, mainly on the following five themes: Openness, Access, Security, Diversity, and issues related to the management of Critical Internet Resources.

The best part of IGF 2007 was undoubtedly the various workshops, “dynamic coalition” meetings, and best practice sessions, which were independently organized by the meeting’s participants. The level of quality of the dialogue in many of these sessions was outstanding, with diverse stakeholders coming together to engage on a common topic and present different viewpoints. All of the new ideas discussed at this year’s forum — indeed all discussion of “emerging issues” — came from the independently organized workshops and best practice sessions. As IGF Chairman Nitin Desai put it during the 2007 closing session: like the Internet itself, all the real action at this forum was at the edges.

In addition to the robust quality of the non-main session discussions, IGF-Rio offered an incredible number (84) of meetings on a broad range of subjects – indeed so many that participants had to choose between several interesting sessions that were scheduled concurrently. But don’t fret: you can still watch or listen to all missed sessions for years to come via the Internet.

Read the full report at IP Justice Website.

Technorati Tags: IP Justice, IGF, Internet Governance Forum

RIO DE JANEIRO - Intellectual property-related issues were a topic avoided by governments during the 2003-2005 World Summit on the Information Society, which gave way to the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). But at the second IGF in Rio de Janeiro last week there were several IP-related workshops.Organisers of the dynamic coalitions on open standards, access to knowledge and the newly formed coalition on digital education said they were satisfied with the attention IP issues drew.

David Gross, the United States delegation lead, said he had been interested to see how much IP issues had come up. “IP issues of course are always an important issue,” said Gross, the US coordinator for international communications and information policy. “But there are many other places devoted to that topic, like WIPO [the World Intellectual Property Organization] or WTO [the World Trade Organization]. The fact that people think that the IGF is a place for these issues was interesting to me.” But Gross called it a misused opportunity that issues of the free flow of information had not come up more instead.

Read the full article at the Intellectual Property Watch.

The Government of Brazil is hosting in Rio de Janeiro the second Internet Governance Forum meeting. The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during the IGF.

HELOISA MAGALHÃES: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I’m going to talk in Portuguese. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am a Brazilian journalist from the “Valor Econômico,” and I am deeply honored to take part in this meeting. For us journalists in economics and finance, this issue is of utmost
importance. And for me as a Brazilian, there’s special appeal to this. We are a country full of inequalities, and the Internet has proven to be a means of overcoming the challenge. First, I would like to call upon Mr. Ronaldo Lemos, who will chair the session. However, before, I’d like to remind all of you that our intention is to promote a debate. This is to be an interactive session.

Questions and answers — questions from the audience. I would like to invite those who are sitting at the back of the room to come up closer so that we can have a true interactivity, so that we can have a more joyous interaction. First of all, Mr. Ronaldo, I give you the floor.

Read the full transcript.

The Government of Brazil will host in Rio de Janeiro on 12 - 15 November 2007 the second Internet Governance Forum meeting. The IGF website - run by the IGF Secretariat - supports the United Nations Secretary-General in carrying out the mandate from the World Summit on the Information Society with regard to convening a new forum for multi-stakeholder policy dialogue - namely the Internet Governance Forum.
Now a revised schedule for the Rio de Janeiro Meeting and a revised programme outline is available.

Technorati Tags: Internet Governance Forum, Brasil, Open Consultation

The Government of Brazil will host in Rio de Janeiro on 12 - 15 November 2007 the second Internet Governance Forum meeting. The IGF website - aimed at supporting the consultative process on the convening of the IGF and provides an interactive collaborative space where all stakeholders can air their views and exchange ideas - publiced a new announcement, as follows.

Preparing for the Second Meeting of the IGF

A draft programme outline and meeting schedule for the Rio de Janeiro Meeting are available for comment.

The documents aim to provide an input into the open round of consultations on 23 May 2007 to discuss programme and agenda for the second meeting of the IGF in Rio de Janeiro. The programme outline will be revised in light of comments received. Comments submitted to the IGF Secretariat ( igf@unog.ch) or posted in our online discussion section by 17 May 2007 will be reflected in a revised version. (Read on …)