Were the modifications sanctioned by the UN?

Were the modifications sanctioned by the UN?

Posted Dec 1, 2005 10:46 UTC (Thu) by Felix.Braun (subscriber, #3032)
Parent article: Microsoft, the "Vienna Conclusions," and the UN World Summit (Heise Online)

I'm sorry if I should be suffering from my intermittent english-inhibition (I'm not a native speaker) while reading the referenced article. But the way I understand the article, the UN have nothing to do with the Microsoft-friendly additions to the Vienna-Conclusions document. Actually, this article makes that point rather clearly. Thus, it seems to me that the UN-bashing that has been going on in this thread is completely uncalled for.

As far as I understand it the following has happened:

1. In preparation for the WSIS, the Austrian government decides to have its own conference on "ITC + Creativity" which was co-sponsored by Microsoft. As part of that conference, there was a panel on "Digital Rights / Creative Commons", in which some rather clued-in individuals participated.
2. This panel drew up a set of conclusions, that were to be presented at the WSIS in Tunis in a brochure published by the Austrian government called "The Vienna Conclusions".
3. Unfortunately, the text that actually was distributed in Tunis contained some editing to the original conclusions, which misrepresent the findings of the "Digital Rights / Creative Commons" panel.
4. These changes were made without consulting the members of the panel.

This would mean that Dr. Peter Aurelius Bruck the "Editor-in-Chief" of the brochure that the Austrian Chancellor's Office published, may have some serious explaining to do. In my opinion it does not however cast any bad light on the UN.

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