Dear openZIM developers team!
As I wrote last week I was at the Wikimedia Conference in Berlin.
== Wikimedia Israel / hebrew Wikipedia on OLPC == One result was that I meet Asaf Bartov from Israel who is working on hebrew Wikipedia for the One Laptop Per Child project (OLPC, XO). I haven't heard from him since I came back, but I am pretty sure we will hear from him after the Easter holidays. I keep him up-to-date by forwarding the most relevant mails from this mailinglist.
== Wikimedia Italia / italian Wikipedia on DVD == I also talked to Frieda Brioschi from Wikimedia Italia concerning their Wikipedia DVD. They have a company in Italy which created a proprietary software with GUI for the DVD and an "unknown" storage for the data (reminds me of the Directmedia approach in the first place). She said the software was "awkward". They plan to have a new DVD this year and the company promised to write a new software which is better. Frieda stated that WMIT is not yet sure if they will sign a contract with this company again. After talking about openZIM Frieda said that she will take that into account. I offered her that WMIT can make their DVD on its own by using our software and maybe Kiwix, or they point the company to our software which they can use and integrate zimlib or she may also ask Emmanuel - maybe he would be willing to make a DVD for WMIT.
== Wikimedia Polska / polish Wikipedia on DVD == Wikimedia Polska had a DVD using HTML dumps and a Java applet as search engine. Didn't sell, no current plans on having a new DVD.
== Wikimedia Foundation Conference Call == Erik Möller (Deputy Director of Wikimedia Foundation) contacted me after the conference by mail, stating that he heard from openZIM and would like to talk to me about that.
Quote: "Since it seems like prior offline reader efforts are merging into it, I would like to understand the goals and deliverables of the project better, and also discuss whether we could support it in any fashion."
We have now fixed a date with James Owen, his assistant, for a conference call at Thursday evening, April 16th at 20:00 our local time (CEST).
I would like to collect some statements and ideas how Wikimedia Foundation could help us. To do that in a collaborative way I created
http://openzim.org/Wikimedia_Foundation_Relationship
and will now start filling in what I have in mind, but invite you to add what you feel is important to mention from your point of view.
Thanks for your attention,
Manuel
Manuel Schneider wrote:
== Wikimedia Italia / italian Wikipedia on DVD == I also talked to Frieda Brioschi from Wikimedia Italia concerning their Wikipedia DVD. They have a company in Italy which created a proprietary software with GUI for the DVD and an "unknown" storage for the data (reminds me of the Directmedia approach in the first place). She said the software was "awkward". They plan to have a new DVD this year and the company promised to write a new software which is better. Frieda stated that WMIT is not yet sure if they will sign a contract with this company again. After talking about openZIM Frieda said that she will take that into account. I offered her that WMIT can make their DVD on its own by using our software and maybe Kiwix, or they point the company to our software which they can use and integrate zimlib or she may also ask Emmanuel - maybe he would be willing to make a DVD for WMIT.
Surely, the real problem is that WM IT has received a 50% of its 2008's incoming with the royalties of the DVD... without this new version they will lose this incoming for the following year.
I think that they are seriously looking for a new software.
Ilario
(CCing Ilario as he has not subscribed)
Am Samstag, 11. April 2009 schrieb Ilario Valdelli:
Surely, the real problem is that WM IT has received a 50% of its 2008's incoming with the royalties of the DVD... without this new version they will lose this incoming for the following year.
I think that they are seriously looking for a new software.
Well, we are aiming to provide a "standard" for storing offline data (especially Wikipedia, but also websites in general) and so we are very much interested in having the major DVD publishers aboard with us.
This will make the data files (aka ZIM files) more convenient for the users, as they can exchange them freely and viewing them using their favourite reader. Then it will help us to spread the software as it becomes more usable, as there is more content to use it on. This ends up in getting more developers to the project and therefore being able to provide a clean and stable solution for offline Wikipedia.
Currently a lot of people are doing the same work, all of them achieving between 10 and 80% of the goal. A lot of projects are abondand, users disappointed as they have installed an application and aren't able to get new data files for it (eg. the iPhone application). With ZIM as a standard anyone can make a new ZIM file and live goes on.
As you know we're trying to get a new german DVD ready by June - bear with us! I'm pretty optimistic that we will get it done.
If WMIT decides to use ZIM I would be happy - whether they use openZIM, Kiwix or they convince the company integrating libzim - it doesn't matter. Pretty sure the project can only benefit from that and if this involves new developers it would be the best to happen for us.
Greets,
Manuel