Cyberinfrastructure and the Public Interest

“Over the last several months I have spoken at conferences and
symposia in places as widely dispersed as Washington and Cambridge,
Beijing and New Haven. In each case, the topic was the intersection
of standards and the public interest, comprehending new concepts
such as the ‘knowledge commons’ and increasing importance of
‘cyberinfrastructure,’ and issues such as government’s
responsibility to utilize appropriate standards to safeguard the
future of public documents, and the best way to ensure that the
promise of information and communications technologies (ITC) is
fulfilled in developing nations. These gatherings have been held
under the auspices of institutions as diverse as the National
Academies and the United Nations Development Programme, the Chinese
Ministry of Commerce and the United States–European Commission
Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue, and the Law Schools of Harvard and
Yale Universities.

“The fact that so many people are meeting in so many venues to
discuss standards in non-technical contexts demonstrates the fact
that something new and important is at work here…”

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