Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On Jan 19, 2008 3:29 PM, Brion Vibber brion@wikimedia.org wrote: [snip]
We won't even consider touching the software itself with a hundred-foot pole until they can support the free environment and formats we require. That's a condition they're well aware of.
I hear you Brion. But not everyone is saying the same thing here.
If it were all really that simple the press release could have said something like "We think this sounds interesting, and we'll give it a poke once they figure out how to make it open".
IIRC, that's pretty much what our press release says once you strip the PR fluff.
But instead we've got some foundation staff counter concerns by arguing that a strong commitment to free formats is a form of religious fundamentalism. And this isn't new, and I don't bring it up to single out Godwin, Erik used a similar approach in a prior argument for flash ("dogmatic isolationism", saying I can't assume good faith).
I should warn you that Mike likes to argue both sides of an issue; he's quite the lawyer. :)
The argument that the concerns do not matter does not jive with your position that we will do nothing until the concerns are addressed.
I appreciate your words on this matter and I am not claiming that Wikimedia is, as of yet, deploying anything objectionable. Rather, by discussing our concerns about the apparent direction we're will hopefully make it clear to everyone that we consider these issues important.
[snip]
Encouraging them to move their tool in the directions we favor is the ONLY thing we're doing.
And the counter is that their tool, while written in flash, can't get to where we really would need it to be.
As I've mentioned in my other post, Flash brings both benefits and problems. It's a matter of what the tradeoffs are, and I should point out that:
1) Reasonable people may disagree on how important the various pluses and minus are
2) No decision has yet been made on whether patent-encumbered codecs should be forbidden as compatibility-alternates alongside patent-free codecs (a decision to forbid them would pretty much knock out any potential for us to use Flash, while a decision to allow them would keep it available in our toolbox)
A better direction is good, but there are many other possible partnerships (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FORscene for example) which Wikimedia has walked away from taking which would be in a better position to achieve a solid outcome.
There's not an exclusive deal here.
-- brion