On 8/28/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Who is "we" and "ourselves"? If
someone wrote an integration patch for
it, would that be accepted into the mainline? Would it be enabled for
Wikipedia?
Almost certainly not (although it would surely be accepted as an
extension). If someone wrote open-source code to do the same thing,
it definitely would be accepted and enabled on Wikipedia, assuming it
worked.
Why would they do that? Do we have a rule against
integration with
proprietary software?
I could easily be wrong, but I think the only proprietary software
currently used throughout the entire process of serving pages to users
is Linksys routers. Non-free software is not used unless there's a
really compelling reason, such as no reasonable possibility to create
a free equivalent.
So, as before, our choices aren't really between
integrating with
Picnik or doing it ourselves, because the latter option is unlikely to
actually happen.
I don't see anyone stepping forward to do the former either. You've
mentioned that maybe you'd be happy to do the integration, but Gregory
has said he's working on an open-source solution.
Regardless, whether or not the latter is likely to happen, the former
is not going to happen. Integrating with a proprietary solution will
discourage anyone from ever bothering to make a free one.