[governance] Mandatory and non-mandatory governance

[Norbert Klein]

Having been involved - well, it still continues - in the creation of the 
basic range of software in the Cambodian language (user interface), 
including the facility to also use the Khmer script which poses a number 
of complicated challenges for the devices, and for the rendering on 
screen and on print, I am happy to see this "distinction between things 
that do and do not need global governance to be important and useful."

There are some things which are difficult to define in terms of "global 
governance" of the Internet, but which still have some "global 
implications" - and in spite of all the Geneva WSIS lip service 
prominently in the first paragraph about a "commitment to build a 
people-centered, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society, 
where everyone can create, access, utilize and share information and 
knowledge" - there is not much international assistance available when 
you try to do it in a language like Khmer which has a great cultural 
history of one thousand years (but is now at home in a small, 
economically impoverished country). It took us years to get UNICODE for 
Khmer established, and the opinion of Cambodian linguists were NOT the 
basis to decide some aspects of the final UNICODE standard.  After the 
UNICODE standard was finalized, the localization of software could 
start, a very labor-intensive and expensive process which requires high 
level technical expertize, and a group of people translating the 50,000 
or so lines before an office suite works in Khmer, and before a manual 
in Khmer is created and printed for it (for a small market - that is why 
the big commercials are not investing in it). We use Open Source 
applications, some time later this year also to run on a localized Khmer 
Linux distribution.

It is extremely difficult to fund all these things - though they are a 
prerequisite for any "people-centered information society" in many 
countries which do not have the English, or Russian, or Dutch language - 
or any other language in a strong economy - as their environment. 
Leaving all these problems to be solved locally means - for many 
language/script communities - that they are beyond their own economic reach.

All this is normally not considered part of Internet Governance - but it 
is one aspect of the Digital Divide where we still "fall through the 
net" - and therefore should also get a hearing somewhere in the context 
of Internet Governance assisting the creation of the Information Society 
WSIS claims to be committed to.


Norbert Klein
Open Forum of Cambodia
Phnom Penh/Cambodia
www.khmeros.info

=

Milton Mueller wrote:
> I found Bortzmeyer's creation of a distinction between things that do and do not need global governance to be important and useful. 
>
> As I argued at the Geneva consultation, "multilingualism" is too broad a category to be useful for the IGForum; some of the issues in multilingualism are purely matters of local or regional development (such as developing new content in underserved scripts and langauges); others (such as IDNs) do involve global compatibility and coordination issues. It was somewhat disturbing that the recent news release from the UN about the creation of the Forum by Annan not only prematurely signaled that "multilingualism" would be a theme of the first forum, but seemed to emphasize exactly the wrong aspect of that issue. 
>
> If the UN decides that real global governance where it is needed is too controversial for it, and instead concentrates on attempting to be a (probably pretty lousy) internet service provider, web host and content developer this will all become a rather irreleevant exercise, rapidly.
>
> Dr. Milton Mueller
> Syracuse University School of Information Studies
> http://www.digital-convergence.org
> http://www.internetgovernance.org
>
>   
>>>> David Allen <David_Allen_AB63 at post.harvard.edu> 03/04/06 10:54 AM >>>
>>>>         
> Putting the question in terms of 'central, international action' - or 
> coordination - is surely helpful.  In that regard:
>
> At 3:54 PM +0800 3/3/06, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:
>   
>> At last you have some issues where it is not even clear if a central 
>> action is a good idea. Multilingualism is a typical example. What 
>> could an international organization do in that field? There are a 
>> lot of things to do in the Internet to make it more accessible for 
>> the non-English speaker: translating software, creating content, 
>> etc. But is there one thing which *requires* or even would benefit 
>>     
> >from a central action? I doubt it
>
> Though the current case - China's native-language TLDs - is a little 
> complicated, several posts on this thread have tried to unveil key 
> facts.  When you get into that, it becomes clear there must indeed be 
> some level of international coordination, for successful 
> native-language access.
>
> Hence multilingualism (defined as here) is one of those cases - one 
> theme - that leads directly to today's post-WSIS, core governance 
> questions.
>
> David
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