On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 1:56 PM, Geoffrey Plourde geo.plrd@yahoo.comwrote:
Commons is an oddball project. Other projects produce work, but Commons stores it. Wikisource could be considered another oddball for the same reason. At this point in time, I would class Commons as a service project (and wikisource as well) because it provides a service to other projects and its only point is to provide a service to other projects.
By "other projects", do you mean "other Wikimedia projects"? And how are you determining what "its only point" is?
All Wikimedia projects are service projects in a sense.
Unfortunately, I can not fathom any reason that Commons should be or is a
independent project in its own right. It would be like making all the filing cabinets in an office their own division.
Most cabinet makers are independent from the office where those cabinets are used.
I really don't see the dichotomy between independence and service.