[Wikimediaindia-l] FOSS and Wikipedia

[Pradeep Mohandas]

hi,

My only contribution to this shall be this. I am irritated at a PoV
being pushed on the list sometimes that FOSS is the best way of doing
things. People who edit Wikipedia comes from various backgrounds and
FOSS advocates on this list have pushed me towards Microsoft products
and I've found that some of their products are better than FOSS
alternatives. Eg. MS Office.

The outburst above is irrational.

MediaWiki is FOSS. Perhaps, some technological under-pinnings (server,
bots etc) are FOSS. What makes Wikipedia, and the important content is
contribution by the people. They come from various backgrounds and
belief systems. Not everyone supports FOSS and I am comfortable with
this. We only share a need to share our knowledge and while open stuff
enables it, we're not tied down by it. I do not see the need to bring
time and again, the contributions of FOSS to Wikipedia on several
threads. We acknowledge their contribution, that is all they ask for
when they provide the user with the software. When we took their
software, we did not know that we had to follow their methodologies to
implement Wikipedia as well.

Pradeep
User:Prad2609

Handheld

On 04/01/2012, wheredevelsdare at hotmail.com <wheredevelsdare at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> I was not attacking anyone, with reference to the link forwarded, pointing
> to this statement:
>
> I think that almost any argument, on any topic, which has premises
> beginning with "Jimbo said..." is a pretty weak argument. Surely the
> merits of the proposal should be primary, not what I happen to think.
>
> - Jimmy Wales
>
>
> Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 14:32:32 +0530
> From: gautam at prathambooks.org
> To: wikimediaindia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] FOSS and Wikipedia
>
> Please attack the argument on merit. Not the person articulating them.
> Thank you.
> Best,
> Gautam
>
> (handheld)
> On Jan 4, 2012 2:16 PM,  <wheredevelsdare at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> Refer:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Argumentum_ad_Jimbonem
>
> From: anivar.aravind at gmail.com
>
> Date: Wed, 4 Jan 2012 14:06:47 +0530
> To: wikimediaindia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] FOSS and Wikipedia
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jan 4, 2012 at 1:57 PM, Gautam John <gautam at prathambooks.org> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 4 January 2012 13:38, Srikanth Ramakrishnan <rsrikanth05 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>> list and off the list. Wikipedia so't wholely reliant on FOSS, and
>
>> will never be. I don't mean to offend anyone but this is it. Please
>
>> comment.
>
>
>
> Wikipedia relies on three kinds of openness.
>
>
>
> 1. The technical openness that makes the platform possible. Mediawiki is
> FOSS.
>
> 2. The openness of content that makes participatory content creation
>
> possible. CC-BY-SA is one of the two definitive 'open' licenses.
>
> 3. The collaboration that is core to Wikipedia is an attribute of most
>
> FOSS projects.
>
>
>
> Wikipedia isn't FOSS but it certainly is FOS, at the very least. And
>
> it's important to remember that Wikipedia does not and cannot exist in
>
> a vacuum.
>
>
>
> So for the love of Wikipedia, can you guys please stop sniping about
>
> what is and what is not FOSS.
>
>
> Pointing an old relevant article by Jimmy
>
> http://jimmywales.com/2004/10/21/free-knowledge-requires-free-software-and-free-file-formats/
>
>
>
>
>
>  --
> "[It is not] possible to distinguish between 'numerical' and 'nonnumerical'
> algorithms, as if numbers were somehow different from other kinds of precise
> information." - Donald Knuth
>
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Pradeep Mohandas
How Pradeep uses email - http://goo.gl/6v1I9