[Lac] Creative Commons Licensing for Developing Countries.

[Taran Rampersad]

Diego Saravia wrote:

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>>This is not a new discussion. The Digital Divide has many factors; they 
>>are constantly debated. Oddly enough, the commonality which I  
>>approach them is actually geo-socio-economic in nature. However,  
>>other members on the Digital Divide list don't necessarily agree  
>>with this, stating that the Digital Divide is also affected by age, 
>> race and gender. 
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>I do not believe in intrinsec racial or gender human diferences 
>if there are important diferences they are social and caused by poverty, and  
>social exclusion. 
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There are some who would disagree with you. I'd suggest joining the list
I mentioned so that they can make their points. Personally, I agree with
you on this - but there are other factors too. Such as the traditional
role of women in some cultures works against women - Beatriz could
probably hop in here on that one.

Social exclusion - my friend, that's another can of worms. Imagine how
difficult it is for me, a poor Spanish speaker, to just keep up with
this caucus which is predominantly Spanish. The average English speaker
in the Caribbean is excluded. As it is, I'm still working my way around
the issue. So I am fighting a social exclusion as well.

We English speakers are a minority in this part of the world. And the
sad part is that most of us don't know it.

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>Age is a natural and universal issue, I do not think age issues could be 
>associated with digital divide. 
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How many 70 year old people do you know that are on the internet right
now? ;-)
This is actually a big issue as it relates to eGovernment and eDemocracy.
If our countries move to voting online and the elderly aren't computer
literate, is that fair?

The Digital Divide is not very simple. In fact, it's a real problem to
define, let alone fix! :)

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>>Your opinion and mine are close, yet I don't agree with you because I 
>>know some people who are within the bracket for being able to afford  
>>a computer and internet access, but simply aren't able to access the  
>>internet because of poor phone lines or complete lack of them. These  
>>are usually related to infrastructural issues... and these fall  
>>under ICT as well. Honestly, I started off thinking it was just  
>>poverty as well, but based on what I've been discussing with people  
>>over the last few years my opinion has shifted. 
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>ok geografic issues are important and not directly related to poverty, 
>because  you can have a medium class man in the midle of nowhere, and could 
>be very expensive to have a conection. 
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>but it is not a social issue, we can not really fix it, its a technical 
>problem, when we find tech alternatives it could be conected. 
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>We could ask for governamental support and  subsidies. I think it is correct 
>in this case. 
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>You find a digital divide issue not related to poverty :) 
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Actually, the problem I described with the phone line is an interesting
problem here in Trinidad and Tobago, and one that the people
representing the caucus should know about. Telecommunications Services
of Trinidad and Tobago (TSTT) is 51% owned by the government, and 49%
owned by Cable and Wireless. So this is a government run monopoly,
though the government hides behind the fact that they can change things
by exercising sovereignity. TSTT is a business; and it's more interested
in dominating the GSM and GPRS mobile phone markets. Just about everyone
in Trinidad and Tobago has a cellular phone, but because the
infrastructure is lacking, not everyone can get ADSL or even dependable
dial-up - not to mention a regular phone that works all the time.

In general, the people have given up. There are minorities, which I
include myself in, that constantly challenge this - but to no avail. We
have the National ICT which is controlled by politically appointed
Ministers, and these Ministers don't care too much because the people
don't care too much. There's a lack of cognitive dissonance... or 'want'
... because people don't know what they could have. So it's a big problem.

I think I'm the only person from Trinidad and Tobago on this caucus. In
fact, I think that I may be the only person from the English speaking
Caribbean here! But what about the French speaking Caribbean? And the
Dutch? Each area has specific problems that should be addressed, and
contribute to our own 'Digital Divides'.

>>Free Software doesn't mean anything without computers. Computers require 
>>money. Even when writing GPL code, someone has to pay for the food  
>>and coffee. Sometimes it's the individual. 
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>yes, computers do not mean anything without people :) 
>we do not eat bandwith. bandwith once installed its there.  
>you have no marginal cost for its use. 
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Well, you have cost for it's maintenance, and then we get into WGIG
issues as well. For example, in Trinidad and Tobago, the entire
country's internet access is linked to U.S. Sprint in Florida. And they
certainly do charge money for bandwidth, and that's another problem.
Last year, their DNS servers encountered problems and Trinidad and
Tobago didn't have access to the internet outside the country for 3
days. Amazing. So this is also a single point failure, which means to
assure that there is no problem with bandwidth like that, there should
be another connection - which would mean another cost.

So I hope through this meandering conversation you understand why the
Creative Commons license for Developing Countries is a good step.

-- 
Taran Rampersad

cnd at knowprose.com

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