Asia Commons
Encyclopedia
The Asia Commons is an attempt to see how ideas of the Commons are specifically applicable to Asian conditions, and may be distinctive from other forms.
It is also the name of a conference, held in early June 2006 in Bangkok
, the capital in Thailand
. The event was attended by over a hundred people, mostly from Asia.
More specifically, the term Asia Commons is the movement to create and sustain the Commons in Asia.
The commons is:
The open/free, participatory/p2p, and commons are a related the three-legged stool of paradigms:
The conference discussed issues pertaining to the Asian Digital Commons, Free/Libre and Open Source Software
, business models and collaborative models, Intellectual Property Rights, patents, copyrights, copylefts, the grey economy and its impact on the Asian "developing world", ideas of the Creative Commons, alternate law practices, access to knowledge (a2k), Open Access, open alternatives, peer-to-peer (P2P) practices and open standards.
Organisers said (in a conference kit presented to participants) that through an exchange of experience and knowledge, the Asia Commons conference aimed at bringing participants together to:
, Cambodia
, China
, Hong Kong
(PRC), India
, Indonesia
, Malaysia, Mongolia
, Nepal
, Pakistan
, Philippines
, Singapore
, South Korea
, Sri Lanka
, Taiwan
, Thailand
, Uzbekistan
, Vietnam
) and beyond (Australia
, Brazil
, Canada
, Chile
, Ecuador
, Fiji
, Georgia
, Ghana
, Israel
, Kenya
, Malawi
, South Africa
, Uganda
, UK, the USA, Zambia
and Zimbabwe
).
Some of the organisations represented in this meet included the International Open Source Network (IOSN), BytesForAll, FOSSFP: Free and Open Source Software Foundation of Pakistan, the Internet Archive
, UNESCO
, the Bangalore (India)-based Alternative Law Forum, Open Forum of Cambodia
, the Open Source Software Foundry of the Academia Sinica
's Institute of Information Science, the US-based Consumer Project on Technology
, the Association for Progressive Communications, the P2P Foundation based in Thailand, the Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication
, Creative Commons Israel, and the Korean Progressive Network (Jinbonet)
.
Participants were encouraged to join in the conference documentation through the wiki, blogs, and photo galleries. Prior to the event, a mailing-list was launched, which is still functioning at the time of writing (in mid-June). Its archives are available online.
A full listing of conference participants, including profiles, is available.
of the Australian National University
and Jamie Love of the Consumer Project on Technology
, both of whom were joint keynote speakers. Bangalore
based lawyer of the Alternate Law Forum Lawrence Liang, independent writer and researcher Vijayalakshmi Balakrishnan of New Delhi, Dr N.S. Gopalakrishnan of the Cochin University of Science and Technology
and Choong Hee Lee of the Seoul National University were among the other speakers. The participatory spectogram session on "Patents and Innovation" included as keynote speakers, FOSS advocate Fouad Riaz Bajwa of Free and Open Source Foundation of Pakistan (FOSSFP) and advocate Rahul Matthan of Trilegal
, India with the session led by Laurent Elder of IDRC.
There were sessions on "History of the Commons, Evolution of Copyright and the Emergence of the Digital Economy: Exploring the Relationships", "Copyright and the Information Grey Economy: A Regional Comparison", "Patents and Innovation", and "Open Business Models".
Using the "speed sharing" model, there was also a session on collaborative projects. Each speaker, talked to small groups of participants, and had just three minutes in which to explain their work and concepts. This was followed by a session of 'round tables' on the issue of collaborative models: factors that lead to successful collaborations, opportunities and challenges.
Towards the end, the focus shifted to building an overview of the Asia Commons—ideas and issues, issues and opportunities, what could be done to move forward, and what is being moved forward.
, South Asia Partnership International, and the United Nations Development Programme
Asia Pacific Development Information Programme's International Open Source Network
(IOSN).
This event was financially supported by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada and UNDP APDIP's International Open Source Network
(IOSN). Local partners in organising the event were the Asian Institute of Technology
based in Bangkok and the Thai Rural Net (TRN).
It was a Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) members' event.
As defined elsewhere
in the Wikipedia: "Open Space Technology enables groups of any size to address complex, important issues and achieve meaningful results quickly. It is at its best where more traditional meeting formats fail: when there is conflict, complexity, diversity of thought or people and short decision times. It has been used in widely diverse settings, from designing airplane doors at a large airplane manufacturing company to engaging street kids in defining a sustainable jobs program. Originated by Harrison Owen in 1986, Open Space has been used in over 100 countries and in diverse settings, industries, cultures and situations - for program and product design, knowledge exchange, interdisciplinary thinking, conflict resolution and conferences."
Organisers of the event were quoted as saying that they had doubts whether the Open Space approach would be suitable in Asia. But it was.
Michel Bauwens
of the P2PFoundation, which has a wide variety of links to P2P or peer-to-peer networking examples, explained his perspective saying, "The basic idea I had was that there's a new social movement emerging, which is really about extending the realm of participation to the whole of life. We live in a representative democracy, which says you can vote every four years, and choose which people who exercise power on your behalf... now we're building tools and resources which say everybody needs to be involved, and everybody should have a voice (in other areas too, apart from just voting)."
Paola di Maio, another participant, narrated her experiences in deploying technology to cope with the fury of nature, as reflected in the December 26, 2004 Asian tsunami. She commented: "Our emergency collaboration model emerged after we became familiar with the tsunami. I was in Thailand then. My internet was working but all the phone were down. So I got online via my tiny mobile, and was looking for information. We knew something big had happened, but there was simply no news emerging. One or two hours after the wave hit, there were headlines reporting an 'earthquake'."
Sacha of Indymedia in the US shared his group's experience with building alternatives from the grassroots. Currently, the Indymedia global network of participatory journalism has local units in 160 cities in 80 countries, ans every continent. He said: "Indymedia was created in 1999 to cover the WTO (World Trade Organisation) Ministerial and protests against it in Seattle. There were some 5000 activists taking part. Many strands from the Global Justice Movement
joined in."
Lawrence Liang
, a lawyer trained at the prestigious National Law School of India, had a session along with others on "countering IP propaganda". Ronaldo Lemos
from Rio de Janeiro
's Fundação Getúlio Vargas
school of law referred to Yochai Benkler
's book, The Wealth of Networks
. He also pointed to Jimmy Wales
, who has said that in the foreseeable future there would be 12 fields that would become free. These things are: the encyclopedia, the dictionary, academic curriculum, music, art in general, file formats, maps, product identifiers, search engines, production made by communities, TV listings, academic publishing. Ronaldo Lemos
felt that things lacking in this list included news and software.
Said Delhi-based independent writer and researcher Vijayalakshmi "Viju" Balakrishnan: "In Asia, the history of (colonial) trade has largely been sea-based trade. And the language and philosophy now governing the way cyberspace is being controlled has strong parallels to what we saw in the seventeenth century. Free trade has functioned through pirate-based models. There were cartels or guild-power. For us in India it was the East India Company. For our friends in South East Asia, it was the VOC or the Dutch East India Company. Today, it's the Wintel (Windows-Intel) combo. In comparison to the state-control model of the past, we now have the story of how Google enters China."
A number of other issues also emerged from the conference, which are aptly captured in the conference discussion list, wiki and multiple blogs.
of the Alternative Law Forum, iCommons director Paula Le Dieu, Creative Commons South Africa director Heather Ford
, Open Society Foundation information programme manager Vera Franz, IDRC Pan Asia Networking team leader Laurent Elder, IDRC Pan Asia's Frank Tulus, International Open Source Network
manager Sunil Abraham, and Association of Asian Confederation of Credit Union's Ranjith Hettiarachchi.
It is also the name of a conference, held in early June 2006 in Bangkok
Bangkok
Bangkok is the capital and largest urban area city in Thailand. It is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon or simply Krung Thep , meaning "city of angels." The full name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom...
, the capital in Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
. The event was attended by over a hundred people, mostly from Asia.
The Concept of an 'Asia Commons'
There are some theses on why the Commons idea in Asia would be different from those elsewhere. For example:- common village land is still in existence in Asia, not in the West;
- the problems of access are more serious in most Asian countries;
- unauthorized copying/sharing of software, music and audio CDs or DVDs is more common than in the West.
More specifically, the term Asia Commons is the movement to create and sustain the Commons in Asia.
The Commons, as a concept
There are many type of commons, but the focus could be divided basically into two—natural resources, and man-made resources.The commons is:
- any common resource that is available to all (but can be defined locally, or specifically as 'everybody in category x')
- a series of specific institutional formats used to manage such
- the movement that promotes them.
The open/free, participatory/p2p, and commons are a related the three-legged stool of paradigms:
- Free and open -- ensures access to the raw material to build the common
- Participatory -- refers to the process of broad participation in order to actually build it
- The commons is the institutional format -- used to prevent private appropriation of said creations
- Cyclical -- The circle is closed when commons-generated material is again free/open raw material for the next cycle of the circulation of the commons.
The Asia Commons Conference: June 6–8, 2006
Asia Commons, or the Asian Conference on the Digital Commons, was a conference held between June 6 to 8, 2006 in Bangkok, Thailand. It's website says that during the past two decades, the "level, scope, territorial extent, and role of copyrights and patents have expanded into new sectors, often without development considerations".The conference discussed issues pertaining to the Asian Digital Commons, Free/Libre and Open Source Software
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
, business models and collaborative models, Intellectual Property Rights, patents, copyrights, copylefts, the grey economy and its impact on the Asian "developing world", ideas of the Creative Commons, alternate law practices, access to knowledge (a2k), Open Access, open alternatives, peer-to-peer (P2P) practices and open standards.
Goal, purpose
The Asia Commons event was aimed at creating "many opportunities where deep discussions and exchange can happen". The conference organisers said they "recognise that all participants have experience and ideas that are relevant and as a result, expect them to contribute to the discussions on issues and topics of interest."Organisers said (in a conference kit presented to participants) that through an exchange of experience and knowledge, the Asia Commons conference aimed at bringing participants together to:
- Increase understanding of the effects of copyrights and patents, specially software patents, on access to knowledge and culture in Asia.
- Conceptualise locally-relevant models for collaborative creation and dissemination of knowledge and culture.
- Enhance partnerships to build collaboration through collaborative projects.
- Identify information gaps and further areas of research.
- Contribute towards the production of material for wider dissemination and decision-making.
Participation
Some 137 participants were listed to take part in the event. They came in from a range of countries from Asia (BangladeshBangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
, Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
, China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
(PRC), India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
, Malaysia, Mongolia
Mongolia
Mongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest...
, Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
, South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
, Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
, Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....
, Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
) and beyond (Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
, Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...
, Fiji
Fiji
Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...
, Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
, Ghana
Ghana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
, Malawi
Malawi
The Republic of Malawi is a landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, and Mozambique on the east, south and west. The country is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by Lake Malawi. Its size...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, Uganda
Uganda
Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
, UK, the USA, Zambia
Zambia
Zambia , officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west....
and Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
).
Some of the organisations represented in this meet included the International Open Source Network (IOSN), BytesForAll, FOSSFP: Free and Open Source Software Foundation of Pakistan, the Internet Archive
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
, UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
, the Bangalore (India)-based Alternative Law Forum, Open Forum of Cambodia
Open Forum of Cambodia
The Open Forum of Cambodia was formed in 1994 and is a not-for-profit organisation that aims to promote dialogue in Cambodian society.It provided the first e-mail service in the country in 1994 to encourage dialogue and address social concerns...
, the Open Source Software Foundry of the Academia Sinica
Academia Sinica
The Academia Sinica , headquartered in the Nangang District of Taipei, is the national academy of Taiwan. It supports research activities in a wide variety of disciplines, ranging from mathematical and physical sciences, to life sciences, and to humanities and social sciences.Academia Sinica has...
's Institute of Information Science, the US-based Consumer Project on Technology
Consumer Project on Technology
Knowledge Ecology International is a non-governmental organization. It was founded by Ralph Nader in 1995 and was then called Consumer Project on Technology. It deals with issues related to the effects of intellectual property on public health, cyberlaw and e-commerce, and competition policy...
, the Association for Progressive Communications, the P2P Foundation based in Thailand, the Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication
Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication
Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication is a national networking body in Bangladesh. Its stated objectives include building a democratic society based on the principles of free flow of information, and equitable and affordable access to Information and Communication Technologies for...
, Creative Commons Israel, and the Korean Progressive Network (Jinbonet)
Korean Progressive Network (Jinbonet)
Korean Progressive Network is a nine-year-old organization in Seoul, South Korea. Jinbonet is a network that provides ICT services to that country's progressive movement, civil society and workers unions....
.
Participants were encouraged to join in the conference documentation through the wiki, blogs, and photo galleries. Prior to the event, a mailing-list was launched, which is still functioning at the time of writing (in mid-June). Its archives are available online.
A full listing of conference participants, including profiles, is available.
Speakers
Some of the speakers included Peter DrahosPeter Drahos
Professor Peter Drahos is an Australian academic and researcher specializing in the areas of intellectual property and global business regulation amongst others. He is the Director of the Centre for Governance of Knowledge and Development and the Head of Program of the Regulatory Institutions...
of the Australian National University
Australian National University
The Australian National University is a teaching and research university located in the Australian capital, Canberra.As of 2009, the ANU employs 3,945 administrative staff who teach approximately 10,000 undergraduates, and 7,500 postgraduate students...
and Jamie Love of the Consumer Project on Technology
Consumer Project on Technology
Knowledge Ecology International is a non-governmental organization. It was founded by Ralph Nader in 1995 and was then called Consumer Project on Technology. It deals with issues related to the effects of intellectual property on public health, cyberlaw and e-commerce, and competition policy...
, both of whom were joint keynote speakers. Bangalore
Bangalore
Bengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...
based lawyer of the Alternate Law Forum Lawrence Liang, independent writer and researcher Vijayalakshmi Balakrishnan of New Delhi, Dr N.S. Gopalakrishnan of the Cochin University of Science and Technology
Cochin University of Science and Technology
Cochin University of Science and Technology is a government owned autonomous university in Kochi , Kerala, India. Founded in 1971, the university consists of three campuses, two in Kochi and one in Kuttanad, Alappuzha, 66 km inland. The university awards degrees in engineering and allied...
and Choong Hee Lee of the Seoul National University were among the other speakers. The participatory spectogram session on "Patents and Innovation" included as keynote speakers, FOSS advocate Fouad Riaz Bajwa of Free and Open Source Foundation of Pakistan (FOSSFP) and advocate Rahul Matthan of Trilegal
Trilegal
Trilegal is a law firm based in India with over 100 lawyers across offices in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai and New Delhi. The firm provides services in areas of real estate, infrastructure, energy, technology and IT enabled services, M&A, Capital Markets, Private Equity, capital funds, corporate...
, India with the session led by Laurent Elder of IDRC.
There were sessions on "History of the Commons, Evolution of Copyright and the Emergence of the Digital Economy: Exploring the Relationships", "Copyright and the Information Grey Economy: A Regional Comparison", "Patents and Innovation", and "Open Business Models".
Using the "speed sharing" model, there was also a session on collaborative projects. Each speaker, talked to small groups of participants, and had just three minutes in which to explain their work and concepts. This was followed by a session of 'round tables' on the issue of collaborative models: factors that lead to successful collaborations, opportunities and challenges.
Towards the end, the focus shifted to building an overview of the Asia Commons—ideas and issues, issues and opportunities, what could be done to move forward, and what is being moved forward.
Organisers
This event was organised at the Chaophya Park Hotel and organised by Bellanet International Secretariat, the Delhi-based Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS)Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies (CSDMS)
The Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies is a non-governmental organisation, based in NOIDA outside the Indian capital of New Delhi, that is "involved in advocacy and capacity building of local-level organisations"....
, South Asia Partnership International, and the United Nations Development Programme
United Nations Development Programme
The United Nations Development Programme is the United Nations' global development network. It advocates for change and connects countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. UNDP operates in 177 countries, working with nations on their own solutions to...
Asia Pacific Development Information Programme's International Open Source Network
International Open Source Network
The International Open Source Network has as its slogan "software freedom for all". It is a Centre of Excellence for free software in the Asia-Pacific region....
(IOSN).
This event was financially supported by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada and UNDP APDIP's International Open Source Network
International Open Source Network
The International Open Source Network has as its slogan "software freedom for all". It is a Centre of Excellence for free software in the Asia-Pacific region....
(IOSN). Local partners in organising the event were the Asian Institute of Technology
Asian Institute of Technology
The Asian Institute of Technology is an international institution for higher education in engineering, advanced technologies, and management and planning...
based in Bangkok and the Thai Rural Net (TRN).
It was a Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) members' event.
Open Space
This event used the 'open space' approach to focus on issues of relevance.As defined elsewhere
Open Space Technology
Open-space technology is an approach for hosting meetings, conferences, corporate-style retreats, and community summit events, focused on a specific and important purpose or task—but beginning without any formal agenda, beyond the overall purpose or theme.- Law of two feet :If at any time you find...
in the Wikipedia: "Open Space Technology enables groups of any size to address complex, important issues and achieve meaningful results quickly. It is at its best where more traditional meeting formats fail: when there is conflict, complexity, diversity of thought or people and short decision times. It has been used in widely diverse settings, from designing airplane doors at a large airplane manufacturing company to engaging street kids in defining a sustainable jobs program. Originated by Harrison Owen in 1986, Open Space has been used in over 100 countries and in diverse settings, industries, cultures and situations - for program and product design, knowledge exchange, interdisciplinary thinking, conflict resolution and conferences."
Organisers of the event were quoted as saying that they had doubts whether the Open Space approach would be suitable in Asia. But it was.
Issues emerging from the 'open space' sessions
- Commons? National Identity Commons - Norbert Klein
- Countering IP Propaganda - Lawrence Liang
- Day Job Volunteer Vs. Full time Contributor - Sam Hui
- Think Local, Act Global - Supyan Hussin
- Open Alternatives and Open Access (OA) - Fouad Bajwa
- Building an Asian Network on A2K - Dong Calmada
- Internet access as a tool to knowledge - Paulina Murillo
- Documenting Asia Commons Practices - Michel Bauwens
- Common Content Creation - Dissanayake
- A Common Language for the Asian Commons - George Cho
- Conceptualizing the Commons - Lawrence Liang
- Ethics in Knowledge Commons - Shree Krishna Shrestha
- Training needs assessment - Siddick.A
- Cultivate the sharing value - Ngeow Chow Ying
- Research Agenda for the Asian Commons - Dick Kawooya
- Spectrum Commons - Laurent Elder
- Online Dispute Resolution - Elad Wieder, Yongkyung Chung
- Better access to government information - Abd Rahman
- A2K Campaigning - Yongkyung Chung
- Implications of long duration/extension of copyrights - Anita Djoble D'Almeida
- Asia Commons to iCommons - Hempal Shrestha
- Virtual Open Space - Chinarut Ruangchotvit
- The Culture of the Commons (Asia) - Natalie Pang
- Growing the Asia Commons and Communities - Swee Tat and Prasad
- Value of the commons in health care - Molly Cheah
- Intellectual Rights/Privilges in the US FTA - Ditesh Kumar
- Gender - Jac Kee
- Participatory Journalism - Sasha Costanza-ChockSasha Costanza-ChockSasha Costanza-Chock is a communications scholar who teaches at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He researches social movements and communications technologies, and has written about immigrants in the U.S., the Federal Communications Commission, the CRIS campaign for communication rights, and...
Emergent issues
One of the issues to emerge from the meeting was a regional (Asia-wide) focus on Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS, or FOSS). Diosdado "Dong" Calmada of the Philippines held a session with this concern. He was keen to look at why Asia had so many GNU/Linux user groups, but seldom seemed to care about the big picture. This region, he suggested, was too concerned about its own technical problems. "There's a need to broaden the perspective of our groups. After all, LUGs (Linux-user groups) are potent forces," he was quoted as saying. It was felt that Asia, with all its tech skills and software talent, is all but invisible in the world of Free Software and Open Source. People do not link up with one another, within countries or across borders. There's little communication happening within the otherwise successful FOSS movement across this vast continent.Michel Bauwens
Michel Bauwens
Michel Bauwens is a Belgian Peer-to-Peer theorist and an active writer, researcher and conference speaker on the subject of technology, culture and business innovation.-Biography:...
of the P2PFoundation, which has a wide variety of links to P2P or peer-to-peer networking examples, explained his perspective saying, "The basic idea I had was that there's a new social movement emerging, which is really about extending the realm of participation to the whole of life. We live in a representative democracy, which says you can vote every four years, and choose which people who exercise power on your behalf... now we're building tools and resources which say everybody needs to be involved, and everybody should have a voice (in other areas too, apart from just voting)."
Paola di Maio, another participant, narrated her experiences in deploying technology to cope with the fury of nature, as reflected in the December 26, 2004 Asian tsunami. She commented: "Our emergency collaboration model emerged after we became familiar with the tsunami. I was in Thailand then. My internet was working but all the phone were down. So I got online via my tiny mobile, and was looking for information. We knew something big had happened, but there was simply no news emerging. One or two hours after the wave hit, there were headlines reporting an 'earthquake'."
Sacha of Indymedia in the US shared his group's experience with building alternatives from the grassroots. Currently, the Indymedia global network of participatory journalism has local units in 160 cities in 80 countries, ans every continent. He said: "Indymedia was created in 1999 to cover the WTO (World Trade Organisation) Ministerial and protests against it in Seattle. There were some 5000 activists taking part. Many strands from the Global Justice Movement
Global Justice Movement
The Global Justice Movement is a network or constellation of globalized social movements opposing what is often known as the “corporate globalization” and promoting equal distribution of economic resources.-Movement of movements:...
joined in."
Lawrence Liang
Lawrence Liang
Lawrence Liang is an Indian Chinese legal researcher and lawyer based in the city of Bangalore, who is known for his legal campaigns on issues of public concern...
, a lawyer trained at the prestigious National Law School of India, had a session along with others on "countering IP propaganda". Ronaldo Lemos
Ronaldo Lemos
Ronaldo Lemos da Silva Júnior, Brazilian academic and commentator on copyright, technology and culture. Lemos is Project Lead of the Creative Commons Brazil, Creative Commons International...
from Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
's Fundação Getúlio Vargas
Fundação Getúlio Vargas
Fundação Getulio Vargas is a Brazilian higher education institution founded on December 20, 1944. It offers regular courses of Economics, Business Administration, Law, Social Sciences and Information technology management...
school of law referred to Yochai Benkler
Yochai Benkler
Yochai Benkler is an Israeli-American professor of Law and author. Since 2007, he has been the Berkman Professor of Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School. He is also a faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.- Biography :In 1984, Benkler...
's book, The Wealth of Networks
The Wealth of Networks
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom is a book by law professor Yochai Benkler published by Yale University Press on April 3, 2006....
. He also pointed to Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales is an American Internet entrepreneur best known as a co-founder and promoter of the online non-profit encyclopedia Wikipedia and the Wikia company....
, who has said that in the foreseeable future there would be 12 fields that would become free. These things are: the encyclopedia, the dictionary, academic curriculum, music, art in general, file formats, maps, product identifiers, search engines, production made by communities, TV listings, academic publishing. Ronaldo Lemos
Ronaldo Lemos
Ronaldo Lemos da Silva Júnior, Brazilian academic and commentator on copyright, technology and culture. Lemos is Project Lead of the Creative Commons Brazil, Creative Commons International...
felt that things lacking in this list included news and software.
Said Delhi-based independent writer and researcher Vijayalakshmi "Viju" Balakrishnan: "In Asia, the history of (colonial) trade has largely been sea-based trade. And the language and philosophy now governing the way cyberspace is being controlled has strong parallels to what we saw in the seventeenth century. Free trade has functioned through pirate-based models. There were cartels or guild-power. For us in India it was the East India Company. For our friends in South East Asia, it was the VOC or the Dutch East India Company. Today, it's the Wintel (Windows-Intel) combo. In comparison to the state-control model of the past, we now have the story of how Google enters China."
A number of other issues also emerged from the conference, which are aptly captured in the conference discussion list, wiki and multiple blogs.
Advisors to the Event
Members of the Asia Commons advisory group are networked through this list. Those thanked for giving their "valuable advice" in shaping the Asia Commons conference includes (in a list which "is not complete... and will continue to grow") include Lawrence LiangLawrence Liang
Lawrence Liang is an Indian Chinese legal researcher and lawyer based in the city of Bangalore, who is known for his legal campaigns on issues of public concern...
of the Alternative Law Forum, iCommons director Paula Le Dieu, Creative Commons South Africa director Heather Ford
Heather Ford
Heather Ford is a South African researcher, blogger, journalist, social entrepreneur and open source activist who has worked in the field of Internet policy, law and management in South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States. She is the founder of Creative Commons South Africa...
, Open Society Foundation information programme manager Vera Franz, IDRC Pan Asia Networking team leader Laurent Elder, IDRC Pan Asia's Frank Tulus, International Open Source Network
International Open Source Network
The International Open Source Network has as its slogan "software freedom for all". It is a Centre of Excellence for free software in the Asia-Pacific region....
manager Sunil Abraham, and Association of Asian Confederation of Credit Union's Ranjith Hettiarachchi.
External links
- Asia Commons site
- Asia Commons wiki
- FN's blog for the Asia Commons
- Suchit Nanda's photos of Asia Commons
- Asia Commons 2006 conference papers
- Asia Commons 2006 conference notes
- Asia Commons 2006 Conference Programme
- Building an Asia Commons Community BOF (Birds of a Feather) at the iCommons Summit '06
- July 2006 i4donline issue featuring Asia Commons