Overview

UNCTAD will be hosting an Intergovernmental Expert Meeting on Free and Open source Software. The Meeting will take place in Geneva on 22-24 September. The official Notification of the Secretary General has been issued on 1 June 2004 and includes information for participants.

For substantive questions about the Expert Meeting contact the UNCTAD Electronic Commerce Branch.

For an analysis of the FOSS phenomenon, please consult the UNCTAD discussion published as Chapter 4 in the annual E-commerce and Development Report 2003.

For a list of downloadable studies, definitions and examples of FOSS use and policy, please visit the UNCTAD FOSS page.

Free and open-source software (FOSS) challenges our preconceptions about how software is used, produced and distributed and the associated freedoms and responsibilities. FOSS is software that has made its source code open to the public and freely available. It frees users to alter the code and redistribute the same or derivative software. FOSS encourages, or even obliges, programmers to give other programmers and users those same freedoms and opportunities.

But what are the economic and social development implications of FOSS? Why should FOSS be of particular interest to developing countries and transition economies? Is FOSS applicable to commercial and business activity? And finally, how does the FOSS idea and process effect other spheres of human activity important for development, such as health, education or copyright and patent law?

These are some of the key issues that will be discussed at this Expert Meeting. 

For more information about the Expert Meeting, including nominations and participation, please consult the official expert meeting website by clicking on the Expert Meeting menu.

Registration form: (pdf) or (png) (English); (pdf) or (png) (French)

Map: (png)

Hotel list: (Openoffice) or (Excel)

Hotels near UN Palais des Nations map: (png)