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EC Dumps Open Source Conference

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the shallow-pockets dept.

jaruz writes "MERIT is no longer organising the conference on the topic of Open Standards and Libre Software in Government at UNESCO Paris, November 24-26, 2003. Until now, MERIT was responsible for the logistics and through the FLOSSPOLS project, EC funding for the conference. This is now wholly withdrawn. They 'have taken this decision in consultation with the European Commission, whose support for this conference was earlier being provided through the proposed FLOSSPOLS project at MERIT.'"

1 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. This is at least partially correct by dyfet · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Last night I received notification from the director of MERIT at Maastricht that they had withdrawn participation from the conference. Prof. Soete also indicated that this decision was taken in "consultation" with the European Commision. However, this neither indicates whether it was the EC choice to withdraw, or that MERIT for other reasons choose to no longer sponser or act as an intermediary. In the latter case, perhaps the EC would find a different conduit for funding.

    Originally I had been asked to participate at this conference primarely to talk about recent work in developing free software solutions built around GNU Bayonne to enable e-government access for the blind. I knew they were having some type of difficulty with sponsorship and funding. I think it is unfortunate this happened, but I have seen no facts to indicate what precisely had gone wrong, although I am naturally curious.

    David