Angela wrote:
On 11/9/05, Anthere <anthere9(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
>I no longer think an uneditable wiki is the
best way to present the
>Foundation to the world.
I'll let other people make that decision.
I'd like to know if anyone still thinks it is a good idea, and if so
why? It clearly doesn't present an official view, so where is the
benefit in it being uneditable?
Angela.
Incidently, if you read Traroth report, what does it says...
It says
1) Le Louvres is a famous french museum; hosting art, with most of it
much much older than 100 years old, so likely to be considered owned by
humanity
2) Le Louvres has started forbidding taking pictures from this art
3) Only photographers authorized to take picture of art will be Le
Louvres photographers, so ALL photos will be under cp. Which means that
unless you go to Paris and pay the entrance, all this artwork will be
only visible through work under copyright. None will be free to use.
4) And Traroth concludes he does not think art and freedom will gain
much of this;
Now, on another note, compare it to Jimbo's speech at Wikimania, about
freeing 10 things...
How different is that ? How unofficial is it to try to push so that
people are free to take pictures of famous paintings 500 years old ?
To me, there is no difference. What Jimbo said in his Wikimania speech
is exactly what Traroth says about what is happening in Le Louvres; The
only difference is that Jimbo was speaking generally, while Traroth is
taking an example. But if the Foundation agrees that what Le Louvres is
doing (ie if the Foundation public view is that forbidding access to old
painting is just fine) then I must say I do not agree with the
Foundation public view at all.
I will go further in saying that Jimbo's public speech does not fit
either with the Foundation position.
Then, if neither Jimbo's nor my position are the positions of the
Foundation... how do we define what the official position of the
Foundation is ?
--------
Now, there is another important point.
Traroth position on Le Louvres issue is clearly supported by Wikimedia
France. Similarly, other people are currently working to free some
information, such as the people working on the ESA images issue. Most of
these actions are linked with the French and/or German associations.
Should we also remove all descriptions of what the german and french
associations are doing from the WMF website, upon the principle that
those actions are not official views of the Foundation ? Does that mean
what the associations do are contrary to the Foundation goals ? If so,
why do we authorize them to use trademarks and such ?
I am quite worried of what you seem to imply in saying that this article
does not reprensent our official view, because it represents my view and
quite probably the view of at least one chapter. If we remove everything
but only what Jimbo's words, then, I agree, there is no sense in that
website.
The bottom point might well be : are only Jimbo's words the official
view, or may other people view have any interest ? If not, I have no
interest at all in the Foundation web site and will not put one more
word over there.
In short, yes, I agree that the existence of the whole website as well
as the relevancy of our own existence as board members are questionable.
Ant