Summary: Google Chrome includes Ogg support for the <video> element.
It also includes H.264 support. Fine, but ... they're also testing
HTML5 YouTube *only* for H.264.
Mike Shaver from Mozilla has fairly unambiguously asked Chris diBona
from Google what the heck Google thinks it's doing:
http://lists.whatwg.org/pipermail/whatwg-whatwg.org/2009-June/020363.html
Google appears to want Ogg support, but strictly as a sideline for
H.264 support. Is there anyone around the Foundation who can ask them
"wtf?"
- d.
Hi folks,
The 1st Wiki-Conference New York will be held over the weekend of July
25-26 2009 (confirmed!) at New York University, and hosted by Free
Culture @ NYU and Wikimedia New York City.
Jimmy Wales will be giving a keynote, and we'll also have several
dedicated panel discussions to be organized on-wiki (Panels), open
opportunities for short presentations to the whole assembly (Lightning
Talks), and a good deal of totally open space (Open Space Technology).
Oh yeah, and there's the Central Park picnic!
Participants are encouraged to give your own ideas for topic sessions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/NYC/Wiki-Conference_2009
More details coming soon!
And let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks,
Richard
(User:Pharos)
Wikimedia NYC
Wikimedia IRC community,
I invite you to read the following announcement and then, if you wish
to discuss it, join us on meta at
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:IRC/Group_Contacts/Noticeboard>.
I am pleased to announce that the IRC Group Contacts team has been
changed over to a new group with a strong manifesto. James Forrester,
previously chair of the group, has stepped down due to real life
commitments inhibiting him from being as active as he once was. On
behalf of everyone who uses IRC I'd like to thank him for all the work
he has put into the role, and personally I thank him for his guidance
while I was deputy IRC Group Contact in fulfilling the role as best as
possible; it was invaluable advice.
With James leaving the post of chair, I have taken on this role and I
now have three new deputies: Casey Brown [[m:User:Cbrown1023]] kibble
on IRC, Filip Maljkovic [[m:User:Dungodung]] dungodung on IRC, and
Ryan [[m:User:Rjd0060]] Rjd0060 on IRC. James and I, with the
involvement of these three and a small team of other IRC
representatives and functionaries, chose these three as people we know
and trust enough to be able to work with, and as users who we feel
suit the Group Contact role well, and of course who have the time and
motivation to carry out the job.
What is the role of the Group Contact, then, that I have just
mentioned? We have set this down for ourselves far more rigorously
than before. Over late 2008 to early 2009 the levels of service from
James and I have been very poor compared to what is rightly expected
by the community - we appreciate that things have been poor. So the
new group has come up with ways of trying to engage with everyone
involved in IRC more. We intend to try to touch base with our Channel
Contacts significantly more often, first by encouraging them to join
us in #wikimedia-ops (#wikimedia-irc has been closed and redirected to
-ops to try and centralise discussion). They already do a great job
but we feel they could benefit from greater support from the Group
Contacts. We intend to be around more to be involved in discussions,
but we are going to try and remain laid back in terms of using
authority directly: the fact that power is delegated to channel
contacts and their operator teams, we feel, is an important part of
IRC running smoothly.
On a technical note, I am in fact the only Group Contact recognised by
freenode at the moment to perform technical actions like the setting
of cloaks and taking over of inactive channels. We hope that freenode
will get the other contacts approved soon but we have no ETA on this
and the queue is roughly four years long. We have in the past received
special treatment for being a large project on the network, but we
haven't been told there's any reason why we'd get this this time. So
for the moment please be patient while technical GC work is funnelled
by the whole team to me. Our requests for the other GCs to be
recognised have, however, been submitted into the queue.
On another technical note, you may see the nick wmfgc around freenode
- this is an account used to hold GC priviledges, since there are now
many of us who may need access to it.
We intend to hold a Group Contact Surgery, per [[m:IRC Group
Contacts/Surgeries]], soon in order that issues from the community can
be discussed with other IRC users and contacts around.
All of the major IRC channel contacts and the IRC Group Contacts can
now be reached on <irc-contacts(a)lists.wikimedia.org>.
If you just need to contact a GC there is also
<irc-contacts-owner(a)lists.wikimedia.org>.
Sean Whitton [[m:User:Sean Whitton]] seanw on IRC
for the Wikimedia IRC Group Contacts
--
Sean Whitton / <sean(a)silentflame.com>
OpenPGP KeyID: 0x25F4EAB7
Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, (wikimedia-au,
chapters-cultural-partnerships, foundation-l)
The event that you have (hopefully) heard about, "Galleries, Libraries,
Archives, Museums and Wikimedia: finding the common ground" is coming along
apace!
This is a Wikimedia Australia event, a world first for the Wikimedia
movement, to bring together the cultural sector with the Wikimedia community
to work out ways we can better collaborate I hope that it will form the
basis for a long and productive global conversation over the years. It is to
be held in Canberra at the Australian National War Memorial on the first
Thursday and Friday of August. Did I mention it's free?
See all the details here: glam.wikimedia.org.au
(a tentative schedule will be published soon)
Simply put - interest from the GLAM sector has been fantastic. In the one
week since the registrations opened we have now allocated 25% of the seats
(since about 10 minutes ago). This includes several federal government
politicians/their advisers, directors of major institutions, representatives
of national peak bodies and people from at least 4 countries. Seriously -
I'm actually getting registration emails every few minutes at the moment,
from some BIG names...
But! The number of Wikimedians for those people to discuss the finer points
with are still quite small. I really hope we can put on a good showing and
demonstrate the diversity of skills and level of engagement in our
community. Just as much as I hope the GLAM sector will learn from us, I hope
that we can learn from them - and this required 2-way participation.
So - if you have an interest in the cultural sector, and can make it to
Canberra, Australia you would be most welcome to attend. If you can't,
perhaps you'd like to follow along at the "Museums & Wikimedia" Museum3.0
Ning <http://museum30.ning.com/group/museumswikimedia> page. If on twitter
please use the phrase "GLAM-WIKI <http://twitter.com/#search?q=GLAM-WIKI>"
(with the hyphen).
Sincerely,
(a very excited, and a little bit scared) Liam [[witty lama]]
VP Wikimedia Australia
--
wittylama.com/blog
Peace, love & metadata
I can not help share this with you.
I was looking for the name "devouard" in a little tool I just discovered
today (TouchGraph).
And I was surprised to discover that the word "devouard" was highly
linked to the Hoggar plateau (Ahaggar) in Algeria. I consequently
clicked on the central point apparently refering to "devouard".
I found this page:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/9966/Ahaggar/9966rellinks/Related…
Yeah, that's on britannica. There is a little picture on the top left
hand side. Click on the picture.
Now, check out http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hoggar3.jpg
The resolution is rather low because these were picts taken by my
husband and he did not give me permission to upload the high res ones he
took.
But frankly, I am super pleased to find out that one of the pict I
uploaded 4 years ago are now featured in Britannica :-)
Ant
It would be a simple matter of programming to have something that
allows upload of encumbered video and audio formats and re-encode them
as Ogg Theora or Ogg Vorbis. It would greatly add to how much stuff we
get, as it would save the user the trouble of re-encoding, or
installing Firefogg, or whatever.
So why don't we do this? Has it been officially assessed as a legal
risk * (and I mean more than people saying it might be on a mailing
list **), has no-one really bothered, or what?
* until the Supreme Court uses in re Bilski to drive the software
patents into the ocean, cross fingers.
** though I fully expect people will now do so anyway
- d.
We have been talking about how we survived being blocked by the Chinese
government during the last June 4th ban but now this is on the table. We
have to see how this will now affect us.
June 9, 2009
China Requires Censoring Software on New PCs
By ANDREW JACOBS
BEIJING — China has issued a sweeping directive requiring all personal
computers sold in the country to include sophisticated software that can
filter out pornography and other “unhealthy information” from the Internet.
The software, which manufacturers must install on all new PC’s starting
July 1, allows the government to update computers regularly with an
ever-changing list of banned Web sites.
The rules, issued last month, ratchet up Internet restrictions already
among the most stringent in the world. China regularly blocks Web sites
that discuss the Dalai Lama, the 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square
protesters, and the Falun Gong, the banned spiritual movement. But
free-speech advocates say they fear the new software could make it even
more difficult for China’s 300 million Internet users to access
uncensored news and information.
“This is a very bad thing,” said Charles Mok, chairman of the Internet
Society, an advocacy group in Hong Kong. “It’s like downloading spyware
onto your computer, but the government is the spy.”
Details of the new regulations, posted Monday on a government Web site,
were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Called “Green Dam” — green being a foil to the yellow smut of
pornography — the software is designed to filter out sexually explicit
images and words, according to the company that designed it. Computer
experts, however, warn that once installed, the software could be
directed to block all manner of content or allow the government to
monitor Internet use and collect personal information.
PC makers who serve the Chinese market, among them Dell, Lenovo and
Hewlett-Packard, said they were studying the new rules and declined to
comment. But privately, industry executives in the United States said
they were upset by the new rules, which were issued by the Ministry of
Industry and Information Technology with no consultation and no advance
warning. Beyond the nettlesome issue of abetting government censorship,
they said six weeks was not enough time to shift production on such a
large scale. “Many of us are going to take it in the neck with this
mandate,” said one executive. “It has put people into five-alarm mode.”
More than 40 million personal computers were sold last year in China,
one of the fastest growing markets in the world. Despite the slowing
economy, industry analysts expect that figure to rise by 3 percent this
year.
A group of industry representatives met with American officials Monday
to express their displeasure with the new rules, said Susan Stevenson, a
spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. “We view any attempt to
restrict the free flow of information with great concern,” she said.
Zhang Chenming, whose company, Jinhui Computer System Engineering,
helped create Green Dam, said concerns that the software could be used
to censor a broad range of content or monitor Internet use were
overblown. He insisted that the software, which neutralizes programs
designed to override China’s so-called Great Firewall, could simply be
deleted or temporarily turned off by the user. “A parent can still use
this computer to go to porn,” he said.
Although the directive is somewhat imprecise and suggests that
manufacturers can provide the software as a compact disc, it also says
that it must be installed on computer hard drives as a backup file.
“The wording may be intentionally vague but the message is clear: we
have no choice in the matter,” said one computer executive.
Industry experts and civil libertarians say they are worried the
software may simply be a Trojan horse for greater Internet control. The
software developers have ties to China’s military and public security
agencies, they point out, and that Green Dam boasts that the project has
the backing of Li Changchun, the country’s chief propaganda official and
a member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party
The software will be provided free, paid for by the government, and
according to the official Green Dam website it has already been
downloaded 3.2 million times. That number includes thousands of schools
that were required to install the software by the end of May. The site
claims that Chinese manufacturers, including Lenovo, Inspur and Hedy,
have already agreed to install 52 million sets of the software on new
computers.
In recent months China has tightened its Internet restrictions,
including an “anti-vulgarity” campaign that has closed down thousands of
pornographic sites but also shuttered nonsexual sites, including some of
the most popular bulletin boards and blog hosts. China already employs
more than 30,000 censors and thousands who “guide public opinion” by
flooding bulletin boards with comments favorable to the Communist Party.
Last week, as the 20th anniversary of the military crackdown on
Tiananmen approached, the government blocked a host of Internet
services, including Twitter, Microsoft’s live.com, and Flickr, a photo-
sharing site. Youtube has been inaccessible here since March.
This is not the first time that foreign companies have been enlisted in
government efforts to police the Internet. Google already blacks out
politically sensitive results yielded by its popular search engine,
Microsoft allows censors to block content on its blog service and Yahoo
was widely criticized for turning over information that was used to jail
a journalist.
Even beyond ethical concerns, those who have tested the new software
describe it as technically flawed. One American software engineer said
it leads machines to frequently crash. Others worry that it could leave
millions of computers vulnerable to hackers. So far, at least, there is
no version for the Apple and Linux operating systems.
On Monday, Green Dam’s own website offered a hint of discontent over the
filtering software. On the bulletin board section of the site, several
users complained that pornographic images slipped through or that their
computers had become painfully slow. “It seems pretty lousy so far,”
read one posting. “It’s not very powerful, I can’t surf the Internet
normally and it’s affecting the operation of other software.”
By Monday night, however, most of the comments had been deleted.
This may be of interest to some Wikimedia contributors. The Digital
Open is a competition for youth (under 17) around the world to create
innovative free & open technology projects. There's an associated
online contest that is running this summer (I'm a judge :)). The call
below is for "stewards" to help promote the contest, including
translation & outreach.
Learn more about the Digital Open (and submit a project, or encourage
eligible youth to submit) here: http://digitalopen.org/
or read below about how to become a steward.
-- phoebe
* * * * * * *
>From now until and August 15, 2009, Institute for the Future, Sun
Microsystems, and Boing Boing invite young people from around the
world, age 17 and under, to join us as we explore the frontiers of
free and open innovation.
The Digital Open: An Innovation Expo for Global Youth
(http://digitalopen.org) seeks projects in a variety of areas ranging
from the environment, art and music to the more traditional open
source domains of software and hardware. We're looking for new and
fresh ideas that could make a real difference, whether to simplify a
process or potentially have a huge global impact. In the spirit of
collaboration that defines free and open technology movements, we
encourage entrants to start from scratch or to improve upon existing
innovations across eight broad categories.
We're seeking Open Innovation Stewards in as many parts of the world
as possible to help us make this a success. As a steward, you should
be willing and able people to help mobilize, mentor, and inspire young
innovators. You will become an integral part of our outreach effort in
finding young people who have something to contribute. Our stewards
should be experienced users of all major social networking tools,
applications, and media and be confident working with a Drupal
website. And, of course, you should have a passion for free and open
technology innovation.
An Open Innovation Steward's responsibilities will include:
* Translating our call for submissions, rules, and category
descriptions into the local language(s) of your particular geographic
area
* Recruit a minimum of 10 projects from young people between the ages
17 and under
* Promote project by:
1) distributing posters & postcards
2) giving talks in local junior high and high schools
3) reaching out to schools around your country/region
4) blogging about the project
5) reaching out to local publications or other prominent area bloggers
* Participation as judges of submissions
* Translating project descriptions as needed
* Verifying that a project chosen as a category winner meets our rules
and requirements, and facilitate contact between the winner(s) and
Boing Boing Video
Stewards who recruit the requested 10 projects from their regions will
receive a cash reward of $500 USD. And as a thank you for helping out,
all stewards will receive a schwag package that includes a Vy&Elle
recycled billboard backpack or bag, a solar-powered flashlight, a
t-shirt, and some other goodies. We'll also include your bio on the
Open Innovation Stewards page of digitalopen.org.
To apply, please visit http://digitalopen.org/apply/index.html.
Thanks, and we hope to meet you soon!
Jess Hemerly
Research Manager, Technology Horizons
Institute for the Future
iftf.org | digitalopen.org
415 283 8822
Hello,
I wasn't subscribed to this list, since I usually try to avoid the
politics around.
I was notified, however, that some interesting claims were made and
some steps taken (again) without any discussion whatsoever.
First, let me tell it here again - as I have told it on a different
list - that I am extremely disappointed by the lack of discussion
before someone from outside seriously interfere with other project
based on, as it turns out, incorrect informations. In the past people
with privileges (if we ever considered them that way instead of people
with work to be done) were more cautious. I would like you all
fast-handed guys to slow down and talk first, get informed, and act
later.
I already commented elsewhere on vls, in summary I miss the discussion
and I do not believe the case actually breached any privacy, but this
isn't my concern now (as I'm in a bit of hurry).
Regarding huwp, it would have been pretty easy to find out who to ask.
Apart from the obvious choice of "anyone with any flags on huwp", it
could've been easy to identify who made the changes, and ask them.
Like, for example me.
As far as I see, lots of wasted energies go around, like people
planning how to block javascript, how to block counters, etc. It is
the wrong way. The good way is, and I'm repeating myself again, is
FIRST to get to know WHY these scripts are there in the first hand,
what solution they have to solve. This is a crucial step, fellows,
which you neglected to take. (And we all know that the reason is to
create usage stats.)
Next step should be examining whether there is anything this violates,
like, Privacy Policy. In the case of Google this is debateable, since
I don't know what is the scope of the data retention.
However I completely do know about the Hungarian stats. Let me share
the real information here, briefly, since I have to go soon, but I do
not want to let you destroy something you're not aware of.
The stats (which have, by surprise, a dedicated domain under th hu
wikipedia domain) runs on a dedicated server, with nothing else on it.
Its sole purpose to gather and publish the stats. Basically nobody
have permission to log in the servers but me, and I since I happen to
be checkuser as well it wouldn't even be ntertaining to read it, even
if it wasn't big enough making this useless. I happen to be the one
who have created the Hungarian checkuser policy, which is, as far as I
know, the strictest one in WMF projects, and it's no joke, and I
intend to follow it. (And those who are unfamiliar with me, I happen
to be the founder of huwp as well, apart from my job in computer
security.)
If you would have gathered this knowledge (which means that the server
is closed and run by an identified user to WMF), then you could have
started the discussion.
As it is obvious, don't make any interfering moves while discussing it
for days, or even weeks, wouldn't change anything.
What have you achieved with removing the code? You killed our stats,
which provides us with the statistics originally WMF provided (same
data content), but later killed off.
We'll propose (huwp) some solutions on the problem, but I'll really
have to go now. Tgr can help discussing it, and I'll thank him for his
help in advance. :-)
So, think about these in the weekend, I'm back on monday. I hop there
can be an _useful_ discussion, with thinking people and not people
acting on impulses.
Peter Gervai
Hungary
