Here's an abstract of the intervention I made about hacklabs/open-access spaces
during the We Seize! counter-summit in Geneva (see links for more details),
that can be freely used for other presentations.

Three key-points of the hacklab/open-access space initiatives (from the
PRINT perspective):

1 - RECLAIMING COMPUTING AND SUBVERTING TECHNOLOGIES

	* While the capitalist system currently promotes a
	  pan-technological society (that is based upon passive
	  consumption of technological goods, which maintain users in
	  ignorance, grow their dependance and tends to reduce their
	  creativity), hacklabs actively reclaim and subvert those tools
	  (by building new uses for them, other than/against what they
	  were made for, by recycling old-fashionned hardware, and
	  working towards an autonomy based upon free software).

2 - CONNECTING RADICAL LEFT AND FREE SOFTWARE ACTIVISTS

	* Presently, both "scenes" mostly ignore each other, though they
	  have a number of things in common:  
	  
		- the radical left has developped democratic
		  self-organization processes (through direct-democracy
		  practices and egalitarian decision-making techniques),
		  and so has the free software movement (developpers
		  organise independently and voluntarily, share and take
		  decisions through inclusive and transparent
		  mailing-lists and collaborative websites)
		  
		- while political squats actively critisize private
		  property (through squatting, promoting and creating
		  community alternatives), free software communities
		  effectively critisize intellectual property (through
		  sharing, promoting and creating software
		  alternatives).
		  
	* Hacklabs/open-access spaces should allow both cultures to
	  meet, gain interest in each other, and benefit from each
	  other:
	  
		- free software brings the possibility of alternative
		  and secure communication tools for autonomous media
		  (indymedia, independant servers) and horizontal
		  organising (wikis, mailing-lists) to political
		  activists
	  
		- political issues allow free software enthusiasts to
		  insert their practice within a larger perspective, to
		  benefit from the militant experience in upcoming
		  struggles (against software patents, for instance),
		  and opens up a wide range of crucial questions and
		  options (skill-sharing against specialisation,
		  alternative energies, free & ecological hardware?)

3 - PUBLIC EMPOWERMENT, POPULAR EDUCATION, DIGITAL ALPHABETISATION...

	* State-society is getting increasingly technological, and
	  mostly uses technology to gain more control over our lives.
	  Most individuals have very little knowledge about those
	  techniques used against them, and are totally disempowered by
	  technology, which obviously serves the interests of
	  institutions and corporations.
	  Open-access spaces allow such people (and others) to learn
	  about computing in a solidaritarian atmosphere, thus working
	  towards reducing individuals' vulnerability to control
	  techniques (by understanding them - first step towards
	  subvertising or sabotaging?).

	* The Internet can be a great militant tool (with all those
	  counter-information initiatives such as indymedia.org,
	  squat.net, etc.), but remains unaccessible to large amounts of
	  people, and especially the most socialy-excluded and oppressed
	  (poor, immigrants, womyn, etc.), who could highly benefit from
	  such a tool to voice their message. And when people do gain
	  access to the Internet, they easily get drowned in commercial
	  contents. 
	  Open-access spaces try to fill this gap, to build bridges
	  between the physical and the virtual (by providing free
	  Internet access), and to offer gateways to the alternative
	  side of the Internet (by using/creating/promoting autonomous
	  servers and independant contents).


Some relevant links:

- Strategic Conference: http://www.geneva03.org/sconf/index.php
- S-Conference wiki: http://www.geneva03.net/moin.cgi/StrategicConference
- #sconf IRC weblog: http://irclogs.indymedia.org.uk/sconf/
- sconf audio stream: http://xicnet.com/geneva.pls
- minutes from the hacklab discussion: http://hubproject.org/news/2003/12/248.php
- print hacklab ;) : http://print.squat.net/en/
- reload hacklab: http://reload.realityhacking.org/
- forte prenestino: http://www.forteprenestino.net/