Many events are already being planned and announced as part of the run-up to the WSIS Phase Two in Tunis, Tunisia in 2005, and one important conference focuses on the still controversial topic of free software.

The event is called the Wizards of Operating Systems 3 (WOS 3) - The Future of the Digital Commons International Conference which will take place on 10-12 June 2004 in Berlin, Germany. This conference will tackle issues that are of utmost concern to WSIS participants, such as free software, free networks, and open archives. The conference organisers also support the movement for free access to scientific publications as they say this brings back a fundamental principle of science, which is the collaborative scrutiny of and building upon a common wealth of knowledge. Like free software, free content needs a license that expresses and protects this freedom. Thus, the German versions of the licenses involved in the Creative Commons will also be launched.

The discussion of free software and free licensing was a sensitive debate during the WSIS Phase One in Geneva, Switzerland in 2003. Private sectors participating in this multi-stakeholder space have been lobbying for the banning of open access to technology in general, to put emphasis on market-based solutions and profit-oriented strategies. Civil society organisations have been supporting the inclusion of open source and free software but they face great opposition from business-oriented entities and countries that support proprietary software.

WOS 1 happened in 1999 and focussed on free software. WOS 2 took place in 2001 and raised the question of how this success model (free software) can be applied to other forms of knowledge. WOS 3 will continue this thread by identifying threats and discussing how to go beyond them in order to provide a forum for a powerful movement establishing and protecting a digital knowledge commons. This continues the theme "Free software was only the beginning of the path to a wealth of knowledge for all." WOS 3 is funded by the Federal Culture Foundation, Germany. New York law professor Eben Moglen will deliver the conference's keynote speech. Other speakers are Lawrence Lessig, the law professor at Stanford University who founded the Creative Commons project and Jimmy Wales who founded the free online encyclopaedia called Wikipedia.

For more information about this event, please visit their website at http://www.wizards-of-os.org.