OPEN SOURCE DEMOCRACY: A Dutch-led research consortium has put in a bid for European funding to develop non-proprietary, open- source software for large-scale democratic debate, potentially supporting discussion by more than a million participants at a time. The ISSUE consortium, led by the Dutch new media company Spirit, has entered the proposal under the European Commission's 5th Framework for research and technological development, which includes a specific programme for a user-friendly information society. The proposal includes plans for industry-led technical research and development combined with research by social psychologists and political scientists; test beds in Rotterdam, Belfast (supporting the peace process), Nuremberg and Vienna, with a working prototype planed by year two of the project; and all research to be 'open source' and Linux-based (although some business prospects are also expected). A spokesman told E-Government Bulletin: "We feel that there is mileage to be had from getting people sharing ideas, experiences and software to counter the inevitable attempts by proprietary software developers to control this market. ISSUE will have an impact on professional lobbyists, on pressure groups (one is never certain if they have the public backing they claim to have), and on the discussion about referenda." See: http://www.issue.spirit.nl [Courtesy Dan Jellinek ] From: _/ B y t e s F o r A l l --- http://www.bytesforall.org _/ Making Computing Relevant to The Common (Wo)man MAY2000 _/ Editors: Frederick Noronha (India) Partha Sarkar (Bangladesh) .