On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:55 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <
cimonavaro(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Tim Landscheidt wrote:
Given the fact that no candidate for the board
seems to have
campaigned prominently for this issue in this year's elec-
tion and it does not even seem to have been mentioned in the
two before, I do not see why the board should have decided
otherwise.
As the re-prioritization seems to have primarily been
triggered by River's rant to this very list, do you find his
behaviour or the subsequent board decision disrepectful of
the community?
This is not actually that large a surprise as it seems.
A candidate choosing dumps as his main plank of
attack in running for the board would most likely
be perceived as somebody working as a Trojan
Horse for a serious attempt to fork.
The one thing good dumps preserve is the possibility
of rejuvenating our projects should WMF ever fail -
heaven forfend! But they also not-inconsequently are
vital to an attempt at forking, even while the WMF
were alive and well.
So as a former candidate, let me just state that for
the best of reasons - sustainability - dumps are
indeed a priority for all that take sustainability
seriously. This is not a matter of opinion, but just
a bald fact.
Yours,
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
The dumps are not needed for a fork. Sure, the dumps would be convenient to
someone who wanted to fork, but that's a long shot once per decade serious
discussion and the fork could be achieved without the dump. Dumps are
primarily useful to researchers, to mirrors, to people interested in
archiving a copy of all knowledge on their computer, and only as an
ancillary affordance should they be thought of as being there for forkers.