[wos] WOS 4 -- Manifesto

[Volker Grassmuck]

here's another shot at developing a theme for the next round.


WOS4 -- Manifesto!

There is currently a flood of declarations and fundamental statements of
freedom and openness. It seems everyone is formulating basic positions,
defining essential terms, taking a step back from day-to-day activities
and articulating long-term perspectives. (see below)

The vagueness of the term „open“ that many of you have pointed out, of the
freedom that we mean, in that sense might not be a weakness but could be a
good starting point. That's what we learned from Alice in Wonderland: that
we can make words mean whatever we like, as long as we define them.

2006 is 10 years after the Declaration of Freedom of Cyberspace by John
Perry Barlow (whom we could invite as keynote speaker). Where have we
moved since then? What are the fundamental issues today? 1996 was also the
year the WIPO Copyright Treaty was passed, a declaration of the interests
of rights holders. How did that affect our lives in cyberspace and our
outlook for the future?

WOS 4 could be the place to collect these statements, bundle them,
increase their visibility and distill the ultimate meta-manifesto.


Recent Manifestos

Development Agenda by Argentina, Brasil and others, Oct. 2004, to WIPO
http://www.wipo.org/documents/en/document/govbody/wo_gb_ga/pdf/wo_ga_31_11.pdf

This triggered the NGO draft for a Treaty on Access to Knowledge
http://cptech.org/a2k

Vienna Declaration on Open Access: 10 Theses on Freedom of Information
http://www.chaoscontrol.at/we_english.htm

FREE SOFTWARE, FREE SOCIETY. The Thiruvananthapuram Declaration, May 29, 2005
http://fsfs.hipatia.net/wiki

Open Source petition about applications of open standards and the
promotion of open source software in the public domain.
http://opensource.petities.nl


best greez from Porto Alegre
(http://fisl.softwarelivre.org/6.0/)
Volker