The Networked NGO

Here's an interview with Cory Doctorow, who explains with frightening lucidity just how he and his chums broke the WTO system. Key bit:

One of the truly subversive and amazing things the NGOs did is that we set up open WiFi networks that weren't connected to the Internet -- because there was no Internet access at the meetings when we started -- and then we would take exhaustive collaborative notes on what was said. It's very hard to take notes at these events. Diplomatic speech is very stylized, so you'll have a typical intervention which begins something like, "Mr. Chairman, allow me to congratulate you as I take the floor for the first time, on your reappointment to the chairmanship. I have every confidence that with your steady hand at the tiller, you'll guide us to a swift and full consensus on the issues at hand. The delegation from Lower Whatistan is pleased to take the floor." Und zo weiter. Eventually you get to the point, and after 20 minutes it boils down to, "No." Taking notes on that kind of speech is really grueling, because it's very hard to stay attentive and catch the one little phrase that has meaning.

So we'd have teams of three or four people using collaborative note-taking software, and one would be taking notes, one would be adding commentary and another would be following behind and correcting typos and formatting and the like. Meanwhile, we're all of us checking each other as we go -- filling in the blanks, noting discrepancies and so on -- and then publishing it twice a day at lunch and dinner.

Now, the delegations there were accustomed to the old WIPO regime, where the notes would be taken by the secretariat, sent out for approval by the delegates, sanitized -- all the bodies would be buried -- and then published six months later. And what happened once we started working together like this is that delegates would get calls on their lunch break about things they'd said that morning. Suddenly, they're immediately accountable for their words, which completely changed the character of the negotiations.

The usual: light-footed, distributed, collaborative openness beats leaden, monolithic and closed anyday.

Microsoft Using NGOs in India to Lobby for OOXML?

If this is true - and I have no reason to think it isn't - then I predict that it will come back to bite Microsoft very badly one day:

Mail from Microsoft India's Corporate Social Responsibility group to the NGO

As per our discussion please find attached the draft letters -­ please cut/edit/ delete and change it any which way you find useful. Also attached is the list of NGOs who have sent the letters. And attached is also a document that details wht (sic) this debate is all about. Look forward to hear from you in this regard. In case you decide to send the letters, can you please send me a scan of the singed (sic) letters that you send out. Thanks this will help me track the process.

Thanks

Form letters on OOXML sent by Microsoft to NGOs

To

Mr. Jainder Singh, IAS
Secretary
Department of IT
Ministry of Communications & IT,
Electronics Niketan
CGO Complex
New Delhi - 110 003

Respected Sir

Please write a paragraph about your organization

Please paraphrase "We support OXML as a standard that encourages multiplicity of choice and interoperability giving us the ultimate consumer the choice. * recognizes that multiple standards are good for the economy and also for technical innovation and progress in the country, especially for smaller organizations like us, who require choice and innovation"

Please write about your work

Please paraphrase "*** also supports OXML as this does not have any financial implications thus releasing our resources for welfare and development of society."

Thanking You

Yours Faithfully

Name Designation

(Via Open Source India.)

Farewell, Then, Lughenjo

We went public with Lughenjo four weeks ago, primarily to test our idea on a wider audience. Since then we have continued our conversations with social entrepreneurs and NGOs and worked on producing a business plan.

The feedback that we received was overwhelmingly that Lughenjo was a good thing for us to do. There were, however, two problems. Firstly it was not obviously something that The Economist Group should do. Secondly, and more importantly, it became clear that there was not an immediate demand for a knowledge network from NGOs and social entrepreneurs.

The upshot was that we would have had to force the creation of the network from a demand point of view as well as marketing it to potential donors. This would have put a barrier in the way of us being able to grow the community quickly and therefore monetising it.

Well, anybody worried about "monetising" something deserves to fail in my book. Shame on you Economist, whatever happened to style?

No EU Software Patents?

Hm, were this not on the European Patent Office's own site, I might have doubted its authenticity:

Where do we stand in the discussion about patents on computer-implemented inventions (CII patents) two years after rejection in the European Parliament? This was the perspective under which the EPO had invited members of the European Parliament, representatives from industry and enterprise, NGOs and IP specialists to review developments since the rejection of the CII directive.

The bottom line (literally)?

All speakers welcomed unequivocally the opportunity to discuss the issue at a high level and made clear that a new CII debate followed by legal modifications was neither necessary nor desirable.

Wearing my cynical journalist's hat, I suppose this might mean that companies in favour of software patents (like SAP, which emerges once again as the Big Baddie of Europe in all this), think they'll be able to squeeze through their wretched computer implemented inventions under the present scheme.

Still, the EPO story's headline "No revival of software patents debate" is a good marker to have. (Via Slashdot.)

Google and Cultural Genocide

A suprising post from Cult of the Dead Cow about Google and its role in the cultural genocide of the Tibetans:

Ever since Google announced that it would deploy its emasculated server farms into Mainland China, the search giant's collaboration with Chinese censors has been widely criticized by the human rights community, free speech advocates, and the United States Congress. Although Google claims to have consulted with many nameless NGOs before deciding to export its censorship technology to China, it failed to take anyone's advice not to proceed. Google apparently knew better than its critics. Google even took the step of hiring someone from the Council on Foreign Relations to improve its public image with respect to corporate responsibility and geo-strategy. Regardless, Google's arguments for continuing to capitulate to Chinese demands are misplaced, self-serving, and uninformed. They are also a threat to Western security
interests.

Pity about that typeface. (Via Boing Boing.)