With respect, Fae, if you're going to propose banning an existing solution, it is on you to propose a suitable alternative or at least a process to find it before the ban takes effect.

I write this as a signatory of Free Software Foundation Europe's Public Money? Public Code open letter. I am wholeheartedly a proponent of open source software.

At the same time, I am a firm believer in using the best available tool for the job.

Our mission is too important to hold ourselves back at every step due to a noble but often unrealistic wish to use open source solutions for everything we do.

Last year, because of my drive to use proper open source solutions, WMPL wasted hours and hours of staff time (mostly mine) and a not insignificant amount of members' time because:

Zeus, a widely used, cryptographically secure voting system is impossible to setup and maintain and has very sparse documentation,
CiviCRM, the premier open source CRM solution for NGOs, refuses to work correctly after the Wordpress installation is moved to a new URL, and documentation isn't helpful.

To my knowledge there are no suitable open source options that would be easy-to-use and robust enough to support our needs in both cases and be comparable to commercial counterparts.

I have wasted a ton of time (and therefore WMPL money), before I decided to use state-of-the-art commercial solutions for the needs described above. Don't be like me. Don't make other people think & act like I did. Be smarter.

Should we use an equivalent open source solution when one is available? Yes.

Should we have a public list of open source tools needed? Yes.

Should we use programmes such as Google Summer of Code to build those tools? Yes.

Should we waste time using sub-par solutions or doing work manually? Hell no.

So here's a constructive alternative idea:

Let's gather the needs and use cases for tools used by WMF and affiliates,
Let's build a list of potential open source replacements and map what features are missing,
Let's put the word out that we're looking for open source replacements where there are none available,
Let's embed Wikimedia liaisons in key open source projects to ensure our needs and use cases are addressed promptly,
Let's use initiatives such as Summer of Code to kickstart building some of these tools.

I acknowledge the above is much harder to do than instituting a ban via community consensus. It is, however, a much more productive approach and will get us to your desired state eventually, and without sabotaging the work that needs to happen in the meantime.

Oh, and in case anybody's wondering why we can't build these tools in-house:

We could but really, really shouldn't. MediaWiki and the wider Wikimedia tech infrastructure is still in need of huge improvements. It would be really unwise to distract WMF's development and product teams from these goals by requesting they build standard communication or reporting tools.

On Sat, Feb 13, 2021 at 4:42 PM Fæ <faewik@gmail.com> wrote:

As a consequence of the promotion of a Google forms based survey this
week by a WMF representative, a proposal on Wikimedia Commons has been
started to ban the promotion of surveys which rely on third party
sites like Google Forms.[1]

Launched today, but already it appears likely that this proposal will
have a consensus to support. Considering that Commons is one of our
largest Wikimedia projects, there are potential repercussions of
banning the on-wiki promotion of surveys which use Google products or
other closed source third party products like SurveyMonkey.

Feedback is most welcome on the proposal discussion, or on this list
for handling impact, solutions, recommended alternatives that already
exist, or the future role of the WMF to support research and surveys
for the WMF and affiliates by using forking open source software and
self-hosting and self-managing data "locally".

Links
1. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Village_pump/Proposals#Use_of_off-wiki_surveys_using_third-party_tools

Thanks
Fae
--
faewik@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae
#WearAMask

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