I would like to say a few words about PITCH, and the reasons why we are involved, today, in this event. PITCH is the nonprofit association for the "Promotion of International Technological Cooperation for Humanistic-ends". It aims at involving the research community closer in the decision-making process and the promotion of technologies, thus completing the roles, for instance, of the political bodies, the industry, and the consumer associations.

In the past, the community of researchers was probably the most "global" of the human communities. The researchers often were, together with sport people, the last ones to travel among countries even in period of extreme political tensions.

Today, everything else, the economy, industry, news, commerce, laws, all are increasingly "global", and the community of researchers has lost the statute of "the most international" community.

Still, because its members are forward-looking, and "naturally" training- and teaching-minded, the community of researchers has a special role to play, worldwide, in the establishment of the knowledge society.

PITCH is to support the community of researchers in its efforts to be a link between those who design the technologies and those who use such technologies, as well as a link between the technologies of today and those of tomorrow.

"Open source software" is a typical issue about which the community of researchers has much to say, and from a wide variety of perspectives, as we will hear today. Thus our contribution today by selecting speakers from the research community to complete the views of industry. The proposed combination of skills and expertise should provide the policy-makers of the European Parliament and of the US Congress with a comprehensive discussion and complementary viewpoints on the issue, thus allowing them for well-informed decisions. I thank the European Internet Foundation, the Transatlantic Policy Network, and the US Congressional Internet Caucus for associating PITCH with their work of today, and I wish all of you, indeed, a good day of work.