reportes de gente amiga sobre la conferencia de prensa de Unesco y Bill Gates. Francis es un francés muy comprometido con el SL y con las políticas de acceso abierto a información científica. prometió escanear el texto del acuerdo MS/Unesco (lo tiene en papel). cuando lo circule sería bueno pegarle una mirada, aunque seguramente será un documento similar al que se firmó acá y al que firma MS normalmente. saludos Bea -----Mensaje reenviado----- From: Dr. Francis MUGUET <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [WSIS CS-Plenary] commentary UNESCO, Microsoft, convention Date: Fri, 19 Nov 2004 00:46:11 +0100 Dear Veni & all. I went to the Microsoft conference at UNESCO, I got parts of the press kit and I have the text of the agreement. French journalists questions, especially the first one to speak, whom I know, were very critical.

the problem with Microsoft "working" with UNESCO and other UN-organizations, is that it just gives software, calculated at high prices, and thus pretending they are actually investing...

Yes, it is exactly that : Bill told it was a one *billion* USD "program", among which *700* millions USD were "donated" software ( actually, this is not really true, in the agreement, it is mentionned "deeply discounted licence" ) and *300* millions USD were networking, computing hardware and training. I will post more info on this Friday night I sent by postal mail the agreement to Djilali that might scan it and post it, if UNESCO does not post the agreement on its website. Best regards. Francis

Simple trick, but it works. Once you have them "infected" and working on Windows, then it's easier to sell them at even higher prices software, when they become ministers, governmental officials, etc.

v.

At 09:42 18-11-2004 +0100, Meigs wrote:

...

Hi, lisa, Djilali and all

Thank you for your very insightful responses. They confirm the fact that the UN partnerships with the private sector have to be watched carefully, as they may create precedents, within the WSIS framework. They may become standard practice in the name of multistakeholder partnerships, even if the other partners have not been consulted and have no public say in the matter at work.

It is necessary to assess how Microsoft has framed its offer within the WSIS goals and how Unesco deals with this and its other commitments (to open software for instance). The actual text of the agreement is available on the Unesco site, as Francis Muguet informs us, and it is worth checking on it, so as to consider all the implications. We can then address crucial issues of transparency, accountability, etc.

However, I still think it should be the task of the "content and themes " group to draft a response document, but it doesn't prevent us to include it within the positions of the Civil Society Finance Mechanism working group, as suggested by Djilali. What do yo think, karen and Steve, as co-chairs of the content and themes group?

Best Divina,

_______________________________________________ Plenary mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/plenary