Hi,
Mandrakesoft, the company which created and sells the Linux distribution, is interested to distribute a DVD with an English and French version of Wikipedia. This DVD will be sold in their web site and included with the next distribution, due in next April.
Mandrakesoft will take legal responsibilities for this publication and is ready to donate some money to the Wikimedia Foundation. The amount is still to be decided.
Mandrakesoft wants that we provide them with a master DVD, and would like to complete this first edition for Christmas.
As you may have noticed, a mention about this was included in the press release and the newsletter with the authorization of Mandrakesoft who will also publish a press release about this project.
The summary below is also available on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_and_Mandrakesoft
== Points fixed so far ==
* It will first be sold on Mandrake web site, then included in the next version of the distribution.
* It will include only the current version of the English and French distribution. Mandrakesoft publishes a French version sold in French speaking countries and an English (international) version sold elsewhere in the world. The English Wikipedia will be sold with the international version of Mandrake Linux.
* Mandrakesoft asks that the Wikimedia Foundation provide them with a master DVD.
* Mandrakesoft will take the legal responsibility for this publication.
* Fair use images should be removed as the publication has to comply with worldwide copyright standards, not US only. Also images without proper licensing information have to be removed.
== Questions that need answering ==
* Do we include only complete articles or the whole of Wikipedia including stubs? * How do we package it? Several possibilities, see the page on meta.
== What you can do ==
So we need some help to complete this project. * Work is needed to provide proper lisensing information on all images in the English Wikipedia. * Help packaging. Help with technical knowledge is needed here. Med and Hashar, among others, are already working on this.
Thanks,
Yann