Gregory Maxwell writes:
In the future I would prefer it if you present your disagreement without copping out by calling the other side a bunch of fundies. It's effectively an ad-homnie, and it doesn't further the discourse.
If that's what you think I was doing, then I apologize. I thought I was making a subtler point, but, then, maybe it was too subtle.
Because you have taken the approach of casing my position as one of irrationality and not given me the courtesy of an actual counter argument I am unable to determine exactly where your views and mine differ.
That is not the approach I meant to be understood as taking.
No religion is required. Only a willingness to value long term goals over short term convenience.
And here you assume that only those who believe as you believe value long-term goals over short-term convenience. I should think it apparent to pretty much everybody that the Kaltura collaboration is not convenient in the short term. I should think it apparent to pretty much everyone familiar with my work that I value long-term goals over short-term convenience.
At this point, I was sufficiently upset by how you mischaracterized my position, and because you used the word "nazi" in reference to me, that I ceased to read further.
This is the first time in a long time that anyone has called me a nazi. Not impossibly, your friends are comfortable being called nazis in jest. I'm not, for I think obvious historical reasons, and for reasons that I've written about.
I think I'll resign from this list for a while. I'll wait a year and see if it gets better. See you in 2009.
Anyone who wishes to continue a discussion here with me can contact me via private e-mail.
--Mike
On Jan 19, 2008 12:25 AM, Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com wrote:
If that's what you think I was doing, then I apologize. I thought I was making a subtler point, but, then, maybe it was too subtle.
I saw a subtler argument in your message, but I don't see how I could have followed it without implicitly accepting the notion that the only reasons to have a strong preference for free tech was a religious on, which seems a rather dismissive position. It would not have been the first time someone here has accused the other side of zealotry on this particular set of issues.
If I've completely misunderstood where you were going, then you have my sincerest apology.
That is not the approach I meant to be understood as taking.
Ok.
No religion is required. Only a willingness to value long term goals over short term convenience.
And here you assume that only those who believe as you believe value long-term goals over short-term convenience.
No. There I go pointing out why I think my position can be understood as reasonable without too many deep philosophies or acceptance by faith. To be complete I should have also said that I think following my argument only required a few other beliefs, such as valuing freedom. From there the rest of my argument follows by incremental reasoning.
I'm glad I didn't say more, since it appears I would have given the impression that I was claiming you didn't value freedom! Gah. I'm sorry for creating a misunderstanding.
I should think it apparent to pretty much everybody that the Kaltura collaboration is not convenient in the short term.
The choice of a partner which fundamentally requires proprietary technology, over alternative paths which use or create non-proprietary technology (which may currently be less mature or less adopted), is short term advantageous compared to other options.
I should think it apparent to pretty much everyone familiar with my work that I value long-term goals over short-term convenience.
It was not my attention to accuse you of being short over long term. If I thought you were the sort of person who did that I would have never recommended that the foundation were to hire you.
I understand how you could have read my discussion as a claim that I think you are a short-term-thinker, and I apologies for not considering that in advance and leaving that avenue for misinterpretation open.
On the other hand, I am also not so foolish or rude to think you can't think about short term value, where that makes sense too.
At this point, I was sufficiently upset by how you mischaracterized my position, and because you used the word "nazi" in reference to me, that I ceased to read further.
This is the first time in a long time that anyone has called me a nazi. Not impossibly, your friends are comfortable being called nazis in jest. I'm not, for I think obvious historical reasons, and for reasons that I've written about.
I'm very torn on how to respond to this point.
On one hand I am truly and deeply sorry for offending you, which is an outcome which has taken me completely by surprise.
On the other hand, I am offended at your offense and I feel compelled to spell out what you missed:
You, Mike Godwin of [[Godwin's law]] fame, should be the first to understand why comparing the other side to something bad (Nazism; Religious fundamentalist reasoning) is both a loosing argument technique, and a disservice to valid comparisons.
While you went on to make a whole argument based on the notion that the other side is purely engaging in fundamentalists reasoning, I responded asking you not to take that approach. I included an utterly non-sense reference to nazism in my subject line in parody of your own inflammatory subject line, as a reference to the type of escalation the those attacks always produce, and as a fitting word choice considering the person I was speaking to.
I did not actually expect or intend anyone here, yourself included, to think I was actually calling you a nazi. Doing so would have made no sense, it would have been left entirely unsupported by my comments, and it would have made me a huge hypocrite considering that my message opened by pointing out that attacks kill reasonable discourse.
For the record, I do not think Mike Godwin is a nazi, and through no stretching of logic can I imagine an argument which would allow me to do so in this context.
That dispensed with, .. Will no one here respond to the issues I've raised about the foundation's handling of this, about the importance of avoiding proprietary formats, etc? Have I just offended everyone, or does no one with a contrasting view really have anything to say in response?
On 19/01/2008, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
That dispensed with, .. Will no one here respond to the issues I've raised about the foundation's handling of this, about the importance of avoiding proprietary formats, etc? Have I just offended everyone, or does no one with a contrasting view really have anything to say in response?
I'm not sure I agree completely, or that the Kaltura thing is an entirely bad idea, but I do think you make some important points. FWIW.
- d.
On 1/19/08, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On Jan 19, 2008 12:25 AM, Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com wrote:
I should think it apparent to pretty much everybody that the Kaltura collaboration is not convenient in the short term.
The choice of a partner which fundamentally requires proprietary technology, over alternative paths which use or create non-proprietary technology (which may currently be less mature or less adopted), is short term advantageous compared to other options.
Personally I think the situation is more nuanced than either of you present it as. The Wikimedia Foundation can be a influence for guiding towards what its mission is in many ways (and I regret our mission statement still does not make it explicit that we are for non-proprietary formats; </ceterum censeo> ).
Some routes are more frayed than others, though, and one needs must make an evaluation of what the best/most effective use of resources/good will/authority etc. is. Erik has clearly made one which you, Greg do not wholly agree with. That, I think, is fine. We should still respect the fact that evaluating that is what Erik is being paid for, and naturally Erik chooses whose opinion he relies upon, within the parameters set to him by the board (and here I remind the board, that it *does* have the authority to guide its employees _as a body_, though clearly not as individual trustees).
Do I think Erik perhaps could have consulted wider before making his mind up. Well, I have no first hand knowledge of how far and wide Erik cast his net before coming to the decision to recommend Kaltura as a worthy effort to the volunteer community, but in general a bit more never hurts.
On the wider issue in general on how to best limit the pervasiveness and exclusionary tendency of proprietary standards...
On one hand, we can support in house efforts that are as pure as can be; and hope the efforts will further the standards thus adopted by our projects, due to our position of considerable influence in our chosen area.
On another hand, we can try to attract projects that are currently not working to such purist standards, to move in that direction, by the good reputation we have, by offering the reputation up as a nice label for them to use, with the understanding they will make an effort to move towards such purer standards. (I don't know if this is the calculation that has been made in this case, and whether the calculation has weighed the aspects correctly, but this is certainly one approach)
It is, however, worth noting that this is a historical departure from the way we have operated, if indeed we have now adopted this strategy. The usual way has been to think that not moving towards encumbered stuff, such as fair use content, is the best way to spur the creation of genuinely free stuff.
It can be argued that we aren't moving towards flash, but rather pulling Kaltura away from it, but that argument hasn't really been made, as what was expressed was talk of their using gnash as a move in the right direction (and everyone will have to make their own mind up if that is movement by them at all, standards wise).
Sorry to be so long-winded, and thank you for reading. (I do have some other thoughs on this matter, but perhaps best to save them for later.)
Cordially;
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen wrote:
On 1/19/08, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On Jan 19, 2008 12:25 AM, Mike Godwin mnemonic@gmail.com wrote:
I should think it apparent to pretty much everybody that the Kaltura collaboration is not convenient in the short term.
The choice of a partner which fundamentally requires proprietary technology, over alternative paths which use or create non-proprietary technology (which may currently be less mature or less adopted), is short term advantageous compared to other options.
Personally I think the situation is more nuanced than either of you present it as. The Wikimedia Foundation can be a influence for guiding towards what its mission is in many ways (and I regret our mission statement still does not make it explicit that we are for non-proprietary formats; </ceterum censeo> ).
Some routes are more frayed than others, though, and one needs must make an evaluation of what the best/most effective use of resources/good will/authority etc. is. Erik has clearly made one which you, Greg do not wholly agree with. That, I think, is fine. We should still respect the fact that evaluating that is what Erik is being paid for, and naturally Erik chooses whose opinion he relies upon, within the parameters set to him by the board (and here I remind the board, that it *does* have the authority to guide its employees _as a body_, though clearly not as individual trustees).
Since you mention it, I wanted to clarify that we have drafted a file format policy. It has not yet been approved, some board member being willing to further discuss it with other individuals.
I think it relevant to copy this draft here. Comments welcome for all of you of course :-)
---------
Resolution:File format policy
Whereas an essential part of the Wikimedia Foundation's mission is encouraging the development of free-content educational resources that may be created, used, and reused by a diverse community, without restriction, and because we believe that this mission requires thriving open formats and open standards on the web to allow the creation of content not subject to restrictions on creation, use, and reuse, it is resolved that all material, text , multimedia, or software, on Wikimedia Foundation projects must be in a format that is: 1. Viewable or playable by existing free software tools 2. Able to be created or edited by existing free software tools. 3. Defined by an open standard, implementation, or specification not under proprietary control 4. Not itself subject to material patent-related restrictions on use that are incompatible with free software, nor only able to be authored or viewed by software so restricted. 5. Not encrypted or otherwise subject to technical protection measures incompatible with the permissions of free content licensing. where "free software" is software under any licensing terms that meet the Free Software Definition. Where an independently-used subset of the format meets these criteria, even if some files in that format do not (as with PDF and encrypted PDF), files in that subset qualify as acceptable formats under the text of this resolution.
Ant, your favorite sheep keeper
Resolution:File format policy
Whereas an essential part of the Wikimedia Foundation's mission is encouraging the development of free-content educational resources that may be created, used, and reused by a diverse community, without restriction, and because we believe that this mission requires thriving open formats and open standards on the web to allow the creation of content not subject to restrictions on creation, use, and reuse, it is resolved that all material, text , multimedia, or software, on Wikimedia Foundation projects must be in a format that is:
- Viewable or playable by existing free software tools
- Able to be created or edited by existing free software tools.
- Defined by an open standard, implementation, or specification not
under proprietary control 4. Not itself subject to material patent-related restrictions on use that are incompatible with free software, nor only able to be authored or viewed by software so restricted. 5. Not encrypted or otherwise subject to technical protection measures incompatible with the permissions of free content licensing. where "free software" is software under any licensing terms that meet the Free Software Definition. Where an independently-used subset of the format meets these criteria, even if some files in that format do not (as with PDF and encrypted PDF), files in that subset qualify as acceptable formats under the text of this resolution.
The thing that jumps out at me is the unqualified use of "must". This policy would make it impossible to use content for which there are no free formats (not that I can think of any examples of such content at the moment). Is that intentional? A "where possible" could be added to get around it if it's not intentional. (I'm undecided on whether it would be good to completely ban such material or not.)
On 19/01/2008, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
The thing that jumps out at me is the unqualified use of "must". This policy would make it impossible to use content for which there are no free formats (not that I can think of any examples of such content at the moment). Is that intentional? A "where possible" could be added to get around it if it's not intentional. (I'm undecided on whether it would be good to completely ban such material or not.)
Are there formats that *cannot* be transcoded into something free?
(e.g. the Library of Congress has some fantastic US public domain scans ... as TIFFs; but these can be made into PNGs losslessly. MPEG2 is unacceptable, transcode to Theora isn't *too* lossy, MS Word can be transformed into ODF [even though Wikimedia only allows OpenOffice 1.x and not ODF as yet], etc.)
- d.
Are there formats that *cannot* be transcoded into something free?
None that I can think of, but that's no reason not to add "where possible" to the policy if it isn't intentionally missing. The could be a form of content neither of us have thought of, or there could be a new form of content invented sometime in the future. Or, the US government could grant Microsoft a monopoly on document formats...
On 19/01/2008, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 19/01/2008, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
The thing that jumps out at me is the unqualified use of "must". This policy would make it impossible to use content for which there are no free formats (not that I can think of any examples of such content at the moment). Is that intentional? A "where possible" could be added to get around it if it's not intentional. (I'm undecided on whether it would be good to completely ban such material or not.)
Are there formats that *cannot* be transcoded into something free?
From time to time. Blu ray format would be rather hard to transcode at
the moment.
Thomas Dalton wrote:
The thing that jumps out at me is the unqualified use of "must". This policy would make it impossible to use content for which there are no free formats (not that I can think of any examples of such content at the moment). Is that intentional? A "where possible" could be added to get around it if it's not intentional. (I'm undecided on whether it would be good to completely ban such material or not.)
If no free formats exist for some medium, we'd probably prefer to encourage the creation of free formats for it.
Note that our software policy already means we can't require that people use non-free software.
In many cases that'll cover the same ground as non-free formats; the main exceptions are for patent-encumbered standards (eg, the MPEG family - MP3, AAC, H.264, etc) and widely-deployed proprietary formats that have been reverse-engineered by FOSS developers (eg, Flash).
-- brion
On Jan 19, 2008 6:51 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
If no free formats exist for some medium, we'd probably prefer to encourage the creation of free formats for it.
Sure, but should be ban the use of it in the mean time? I don't know...
You're sort of deep into hypotheticals there. ;)
So hypothetically: There is a type of material which can't be represented in a free file format, and we see a need to host that kind of material.
Should we ban the use of it until someone produced a free format for it?
I think if that case were to ever arise it would be reasonable to not use it until the foundation had a chance to consider it and pass an exemption (or not). That kind of decision should be a strategic one, made intentionally and on a case by case basis. The implications could be very different for for different cases. Does that make sense?
Of course, since we can't currently think of a good example for this...
Brianna Laugher wrote:
Is this the anti-DRM clause? I think so, but I just want to confirm.
I think I'd call it a no-DRM clause: It sounds similar to the DRM related clause in the Creative Commons licenses: "You may not impose any effective technological measures on the Work that restrict the ability of a recipient of the Work from You to exercise the rights granted to that recipient under the terms of the License." (cc-by-sa-3.0-unported)
An anti-DRM clause might say that we wouldn't allow a format which could, in some mode, use DRM.
It might make some sense to separate out the requirements into "the format must" and "the file must". I don't think WMF needs to forbid formats which merely support some kind of DRM (and the subset clause at the bottom would already avoid that), but files should never be DRMed. So 5 would apply to the files, but not necessarily the formats.
The rest of the terms seem to apply mostly to formats, and then only to files by extension.
Is it right to include "software" in relation to this? Does it mean software that runs on our servers? (Because the projects don't really host software, except for mediawiki.)
I think "on Wikimedia Foundation projects" says the materials we keep on the site, and it seems that it's now been revised to make that really clear.
I think it makes sense: What the servers (or staff) use internally is a separate issue from what we send out to users, so it should be governed by a different policy (and I thought there was one, but I can't seem to find it right now).
My own view is that WMF's format policy should be a lot more freedom-strict than a policy for what runs on the servers: What we send to people has a huge impact since it will influence their own software use, while what we use internally has a much less direct impact. (Although there are a lot of good reasons that there should be a strong preference internally.)
As far as 'software' goes, there is software the sites distribute to users: source-code attached to articles on computer science subjects and client-side components (JavaScript, etc) that are used by the site, for example. While there may not be too much of it today today it's probably good to also be forward looking in these things. ;)
Geni wrote:
- Not itself subject to material patent-related restrictions on use
that are incompatible with free software, nor only able to be authored or viewed by software so restricted.
Problematical because it fails to make clear that such any patents that have had restrictions waved for the time being need to have had their restrictions waved until the patent expires.
Your ability to spot odd corner cases always impresses me. I thought about this policy all evening and didn't come up with *that*.
I think the text "incompatible with free software" manages to avoid all sorts of issues with incomplete wavers (waived only for web use, waived only for non-commercial use, etc), but yea, I guess "waved only for the next two years" is arguable, even if the intent is clear. It's almost not a hypothetical: there are a number of video coding patents currently waived for the next couple years, although only for web use.
Since you pretty much can't patent things retroactively, this can be addressed with a simple change:
4. Not known to be currently or eventually subject to material patent-related restrictions on use that are incompatible with free software, nor otherwise only able to be authored or viewed by software so restricted.
The inclusion of 'known' also makes sense because you can often not be absolutely certain about non-infringement, you can be reasonably confident one way or the other, but it's usually much easier to be confident about infringement than non-infringement.
Alternatively, the lead could be revised to throw in a "perpetually" that covers all the requirements, but the patent case is special in that it will frequently be possible to see future problems since the patent must pre-date the format or else the patent will not be valid (and thus not material).
...
All in all it sounds pretty good to me.
I think if that case were to ever arise it would be reasonable to not use it until the foundation had a chance to consider it and pass an exemption (or not). That kind of decision should be a strategic one, made intentionally and on a case by case basis. The implications could be very different for for different cases. Does that make sense?
That's definitely an option.
I think it can be useful for this conversation the first part of the second article of argentinian chapter's bylaws were we define free formats in a very sinthetic way[1]:
"The Association's goals are:
1. To actively contribute to the diffusion, improvement and progress of the knowledge and culture through the development and distribution of encyclopedias, collections of quotes, educational books and other document compilations; the diffusion of information and diverse data bases, especially in the languages spoken in the Argentine territory, which:
1.1. are available through technologies as Internet or similar, provided that: (a) the source of the data is available (for works resulting from the compilation or processing of other works), *(b) are given in a freely available format (defined as those that can be implemented by anyone, are based in publicly available and documented specifications, and whose implementation or use does not require the payment of any royalties), and the availability of the work is not restricted by technical measures*."
Patricio
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Argentina/Bylaws
Brion Vibber wrote:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
The thing that jumps out at me is the unqualified use of "must". This policy would make it impossible to use content for which there are no free formats (not that I can think of any examples of such content at the moment). Is that intentional? A "where possible" could be added to get around it if it's not intentional. (I'm undecided on whether it would be good to completely ban such material or not.)
If no free formats exist for some medium, we'd probably prefer to encourage the creation of free formats for it.
Note that our software policy already means we can't require that people use non-free software.
In many cases that'll cover the same ground as non-free formats; the main exceptions are for patent-encumbered standards (eg, the MPEG family
- MP3, AAC, H.264, etc) and widely-deployed proprietary formats that
have been reverse-engineered by FOSS developers (eg, Flash).
-- brion
Just to make sure... which software policy ?
Ant
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Brion Vibber wrote:
In many cases that'll cover the same ground as non-free formats; the main exceptions are for patent-encumbered standards (eg, the MPEG family
- MP3, AAC, H.264, etc) and widely-deployed proprietary formats that
have been reverse-engineered by FOSS developers (eg, Flash).
On the subject of Flash, I think it might help to relate my experiences so that everyone on this list knows how deficient it is on free software platforms. (This isn't directed to you Brion, as that'd just be preaching to the choir :-P )
I run GNU/Linux on my laptop. Pretty much everything works and I'm able to do everything I do in Windows, except Flash. First of all, the free software Flash alternatives simply aren't there yet. They aren't good enough for everyday use. And even if they were, they still wouldn't be free, because they're infringing on various patents that Adobe no doubt holds. And the free software stuff isn't good enough to create Flash either, so you still need to pay the tax in the form of the creator program (which as far as I know doesn't run on GNU/Linux). You can see why this is unacceptable.
Even the official Adobe Flash player plugin for Mozilla Firefox on GNU/Linux is deficient. It's treated like a third-rate product by Adobe, sometimes seeing major version updates many months after the Windows plugin is released. In the mean time, new Flash content that depends on the new features simply won't work. And the plugin itself is just bad. It frequently crashes Firefox, some of its functionality plain old doesn't work, etc. And nevermind that it's not free in any sense of the word except gratis; it's all binary, the source isn't available, so it's all entirely anti-libre.
- From where I stand, Flash isn't even an option to be considered in fulfilling the Foundation's mission statement of "developing educational content under a free license or in the public domain". It won't even run on a completely free system, and it will only run poorly on a partially free system (giving in and installing their binary-only plugin). It is, simply, not what we are looking for.
Hoi, Nice but what is your point and how does it relate to what is the issue? The issue is that a framework is being developed. It needs open source components to make it work and gnash has been mentioned as one component in all this that needs work. What you describe is exactly the reason why work needs to be done to make this type of content work well on Linux
So you describe that things do not work well. You provide the exact arguments why something needs to be done ... So you are in favour of the proposed collabaration... GREAT Thanks, GerardM
On Jan 20, 2008 6:32 PM, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
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Brion Vibber wrote:
In many cases that'll cover the same ground as non-free formats; the main exceptions are for patent-encumbered standards (eg, the MPEG family
- MP3, AAC, H.264, etc) and widely-deployed proprietary formats that
have been reverse-engineered by FOSS developers (eg, Flash).
On the subject of Flash, I think it might help to relate my experiences so that everyone on this list knows how deficient it is on free software platforms. (This isn't directed to you Brion, as that'd just be preaching to the choir :-P )
I run GNU/Linux on my laptop. Pretty much everything works and I'm able to do everything I do in Windows, except Flash. First of all, the free software Flash alternatives simply aren't there yet. They aren't good enough for everyday use. And even if they were, they still wouldn't be free, because they're infringing on various patents that Adobe no doubt holds. And the free software stuff isn't good enough to create Flash either, so you still need to pay the tax in the form of the creator program (which as far as I know doesn't run on GNU/Linux). You can see why this is unacceptable.
Even the official Adobe Flash player plugin for Mozilla Firefox on GNU/Linux is deficient. It's treated like a third-rate product by Adobe, sometimes seeing major version updates many months after the Windows plugin is released. In the mean time, new Flash content that depends on the new features simply won't work. And the plugin itself is just bad. It frequently crashes Firefox, some of its functionality plain old doesn't work, etc. And nevermind that it's not free in any sense of the word except gratis; it's all binary, the source isn't available, so it's all entirely anti-libre.
- From where I stand, Flash isn't even an option to be considered in
fulfilling the Foundation's mission statement of "developing educational content under a free license or in the public domain". It won't even run on a completely free system, and it will only run poorly on a partially free system (giving in and installing their binary-only plugin). It is, simply, not what we are looking for. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (MingW32)
iD8DBQFHk4XEvCEYTv+mBWcRAhAaAJwJ3/jBdQoArYbvbwnBlOV1iOIzfgCgmUJX JIigTnt4RQql8fr+opFaofI= =EQRC -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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No, I think he's pointing out the issues with this that state why we shouldn't use it now; this has agreement, I believe. Not to mention, until Adobe releases those patents or makes Flash an open standard, there will never be a 100% (that's gratis AND libre) implementation of it, ever, as Ben said.
However, the question still remains: why is it the WMF's job to provide a PR boost for a (seemingly) startup? Wouldn't we get further by helping Gnash directly?
Somebody knows somebody, that much appears clear to me now.
Chad
On Jan 20, 2008 12:47 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Nice but what is your point and how does it relate to what is the issue? The issue is that a framework is being developed. It needs open source components to make it work and gnash has been mentioned as one component in all this that needs work. What you describe is exactly the reason why work needs to be done to make this type of content work well on Linux
So you describe that things do not work well. You provide the exact arguments why something needs to be done ... So you are in favour of the proposed collabaration... GREAT Thanks, GerardM
On Jan 20, 2008 6:32 PM, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
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Brion Vibber wrote:
In many cases that'll cover the same ground as non-free formats; the main exceptions are for patent-encumbered standards (eg, the MPEG family
- MP3, AAC, H.264, etc) and widely-deployed proprietary formats that
have been reverse-engineered by FOSS developers (eg, Flash).
On the subject of Flash, I think it might help to relate my experiences so that everyone on this list knows how deficient it is on free software platforms. (This isn't directed to you Brion, as that'd just be preaching to the choir :-P )
I run GNU/Linux on my laptop. Pretty much everything works and I'm able to do everything I do in Windows, except Flash. First of all, the free software Flash alternatives simply aren't there yet. They aren't good enough for everyday use. And even if they were, they still wouldn't be free, because they're infringing on various patents that Adobe no doubt holds. And the free software stuff isn't good enough to create Flash either, so you still need to pay the tax in the form of the creator program (which as far as I know doesn't run on GNU/Linux). You can see why this is unacceptable.
Even the official Adobe Flash player plugin for Mozilla Firefox on GNU/Linux is deficient. It's treated like a third-rate product by Adobe, sometimes seeing major version updates many months after the Windows plugin is released. In the mean time, new Flash content that depends on the new features simply won't work. And the plugin itself is just bad. It frequently crashes Firefox, some of its functionality plain old doesn't work, etc. And nevermind that it's not free in any sense of the word except gratis; it's all binary, the source isn't available, so it's all entirely anti-libre.
- From where I stand, Flash isn't even an option to be considered in
fulfilling the Foundation's mission statement of "developing educational content under a free license or in the public domain". It won't even run on a completely free system, and it will only run poorly on a partially free system (giving in and installing their binary-only plugin). It is, simply, not what we are looking for. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (MingW32)
iD8DBQFHk4XEvCEYTv+mBWcRAhAaAJwJ3/jBdQoArYbvbwnBlOV1iOIzfgCgmUJX JIigTnt4RQql8fr+opFaofI= =EQRC -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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Replace "(seemingly) startup " with "(seemingly) vaporware startup." Didn't mean to leave the word out, sorry.
Chad
On Jan 20, 2008 1:05 PM, Chad innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
No, I think he's pointing out the issues with this that state why we shouldn't use it now; this has agreement, I believe. Not to mention, until Adobe releases those patents or makes Flash an open standard, there will never be a 100% (that's gratis AND libre) implementation of it, ever, as Ben said.
However, the question still remains: why is it the WMF's job to provide a PR boost for a (seemingly) startup? Wouldn't we get further by helping Gnash directly?
Somebody knows somebody, that much appears clear to me now.
Chad
On Jan 20, 2008 12:47 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Nice but what is your point and how does it relate to what is the issue? The issue is that a framework is being developed. It needs open source components to make it work and gnash has been mentioned as one component in all this that needs work. What you describe is exactly the reason why work needs to be done to make this type of content work well on Linux
So you describe that things do not work well. You provide the exact arguments why something needs to be done ... So you are in favour of the proposed collabaration... GREAT Thanks, GerardM
On Jan 20, 2008 6:32 PM, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
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Brion Vibber wrote:
In many cases that'll cover the same ground as non-free formats; the main exceptions are for patent-encumbered standards (eg, the MPEG family
- MP3, AAC, H.264, etc) and widely-deployed proprietary formats that
have been reverse-engineered by FOSS developers (eg, Flash).
On the subject of Flash, I think it might help to relate my experiences so that everyone on this list knows how deficient it is on free software platforms. (This isn't directed to you Brion, as that'd just be preaching to the choir :-P )
I run GNU/Linux on my laptop. Pretty much everything works and I'm able to do everything I do in Windows, except Flash. First of all, the free software Flash alternatives simply aren't there yet. They aren't good enough for everyday use. And even if they were, they still wouldn't be free, because they're infringing on various patents that Adobe no doubt holds. And the free software stuff isn't good enough to create Flash either, so you still need to pay the tax in the form of the creator program (which as far as I know doesn't run on GNU/Linux). You can see why this is unacceptable.
Even the official Adobe Flash player plugin for Mozilla Firefox on GNU/Linux is deficient. It's treated like a third-rate product by Adobe, sometimes seeing major version updates many months after the Windows plugin is released. In the mean time, new Flash content that depends on the new features simply won't work. And the plugin itself is just bad. It frequently crashes Firefox, some of its functionality plain old doesn't work, etc. And nevermind that it's not free in any sense of the word except gratis; it's all binary, the source isn't available, so it's all entirely anti-libre.
- From where I stand, Flash isn't even an option to be considered in
fulfilling the Foundation's mission statement of "developing educational content under a free license or in the public domain". It won't even run on a completely free system, and it will only run poorly on a partially free system (giving in and installing their binary-only plugin). It is, simply, not what we are looking for. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (MingW32)
iD8DBQFHk4XEvCEYTv+mBWcRAhAaAJwJ3/jBdQoArYbvbwnBlOV1iOIzfgCgmUJX JIigTnt4RQql8fr+opFaofI= =EQRC -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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Hoi, Nobody is saying that we should use it now. Everybody says that the situation with Flash is not good. Nobody holds their breath until Adobe releases its patents. But this whole situation is out of proportion, it is not what open source is about. When people wanted file server support they started the Samba http://us3.samba.org/samba/ project.
When you ask yourself why the WMF asks for people interested to cooperate, there are a cluster of reasons to be considered. A tool like this has educational merit. Wikieduacator, an organisation we are associated with, shows an interest. It does not cost us anything, but it has the potential of providing improved tooling.
When you ask yourself why would YOU collaborate or not collaborate it makes sense to ask if you consider it worth your time. You can discuss it on the mailing list and if the arguments are good for you by all means they are good enough to make up your mind.
All the technical reasons why you might want to lend a hand have NO bearing on why the WMF informs you about this opportunity. They do it for their own reasons. In essence, it has nothing to do with you. When the comparison was made with religion, you have to appreciate that those who believe are ferociously against those who do not hold the true faith. This behaviour is what I observe and from my point of view it is not pretty. This has led to diminished value of this, the foundation-l, because Mike decided that the tone of voice was too much even unacceptable. As a consequence we all suffer a loss because the distance between the foundation and the people of the community has grown wider.
So, you are doing good in adding "vaporware" to what is already insulting as it is. When you consider this freedom of speech, you may wonder why some people are not willing to communicate with you or do not consider your opinions. Thanks, GerardM
On Jan 20, 2008 7:05 PM, Chad innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
No, I think he's pointing out the issues with this that state why we shouldn't use it now; this has agreement, I believe. Not to mention, until Adobe releases those patents or makes Flash an open standard, there will never be a 100% (that's gratis AND libre) implementation of it, ever, as Ben said.
However, the question still remains: why is it the WMF's job to provide a PR boost for a (seemingly) startup? Wouldn't we get further by helping Gnash directly?
Somebody knows somebody, that much appears clear to me now.
Chad
On Jan 20, 2008 12:47 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Nice but what is your point and how does it relate to what is the issue?
The
issue is that a framework is being developed. It needs open source components to make it work and gnash has been mentioned as one component
in
all this that needs work. What you describe is exactly the reason why
work
needs to be done to make this type of content work well on Linux
So you describe that things do not work well. You provide the exact arguments why something needs to be done ... So you are in favour of the proposed collabaration... GREAT Thanks, GerardM
On Jan 20, 2008 6:32 PM, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Brion Vibber wrote:
In many cases that'll cover the same ground as non-free formats; the main exceptions are for patent-encumbered standards (eg, the MPEG
family
- MP3, AAC, H.264, etc) and widely-deployed proprietary formats that
have been reverse-engineered by FOSS developers (eg, Flash).
On the subject of Flash, I think it might help to relate my
experiences
so that everyone on this list knows how deficient it is on free
software
platforms. (This isn't directed to you Brion, as that'd just be preaching to the choir :-P )
I run GNU/Linux on my laptop. Pretty much everything works and I'm
able
to do everything I do in Windows, except Flash. First of all, the
free
software Flash alternatives simply aren't there yet. They aren't good enough for everyday use. And even if they were, they still wouldn't
be
free, because they're infringing on various patents that Adobe no
doubt
holds. And the free software stuff isn't good enough to create Flash either, so you still need to pay the tax in the form of the creator program (which as far as I know doesn't run on GNU/Linux). You can
see
why this is unacceptable.
Even the official Adobe Flash player plugin for Mozilla Firefox on GNU/Linux is deficient. It's treated like a third-rate product by Adobe, sometimes seeing major version updates many months after the Windows plugin is released. In the mean time, new Flash content that depends on the new features simply won't work. And the plugin itself
is
just bad. It frequently crashes Firefox, some of its functionality plain old doesn't work, etc. And nevermind that it's not free in any sense of the word except gratis; it's all binary, the source isn't available, so it's all entirely anti-libre.
- From where I stand, Flash isn't even an option to be considered in
fulfilling the Foundation's mission statement of "developing
educational
content under a free license or in the public domain". It won't even run on a completely free system, and it will only run poorly on a partially free system (giving in and installing their binary-only plugin). It is, simply, not what we are looking for. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (MingW32)
iD8DBQFHk4XEvCEYTv+mBWcRAhAaAJwJ3/jBdQoArYbvbwnBlOV1iOIzfgCgmUJX JIigTnt4RQql8fr+opFaofI= =EQRC -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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On Jan 20, 2008 3:07 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote: [regarding Flash]
Nobody is saying that we should use it now.
This isn't true.
For instance, Erik has long advocated an immediate adoption of flash (for example, http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/commons-l/2007-July/002189.html), and especially with this latest partnership I've seen no evidence that his position has changed.
In prior discussions it has been as clear as these things ever are that the community doesn't want to go that route. Yet the partnership with a flash based web-slideshow startup certainly sounds like movement in that direction. This is one reason that some people here are frustrated.
Hoi, Well given that as, from your point of view, this issue raises its ugly head yet again, it cannot be said that the community has reached consensus on this issue. There are people that do not share your opinion and are not afraid to say so. There are good arguments against the use of apparently not everybody bought into your ideas or weighs them and comes to a different conclusion.
There is one thing you should consider, MediaWiki is not only used for educational purposes by the Wikimedia Foundation. There is a lot of great educational material available in Flash. This is a really strong argument when you use MediaWiki in an educational setting. Thanks, GerardM
On Jan 20, 2008 9:24 PM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On Jan 20, 2008 3:07 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote: [regarding Flash]
Nobody is saying that we should use it now.
This isn't true.
For instance, Erik has long advocated an immediate adoption of flash (for example, http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/commons-l/2007-July/002189.html), and especially with this latest partnership I've seen no evidence that his position has changed.
In prior discussions it has been as clear as these things ever are that the community doesn't want to go that route. Yet the partnership with a flash based web-slideshow startup certainly sounds like movement in that direction. This is one reason that some people here are frustrated.
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On Jan 20, 2008 3:39 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Well given that as, from your point of view, this issue raises its ugly head yet again, it cannot be said that the community has reached consensus on this issue. There are people that do not share your opinion and are not afraid to say so. There are good arguments against the use of apparently not everybody bought into your ideas or weighs them and comes to a different conclusion.
Certainly, I'm not saying that it's unanimous. But advocating we should roll flash on the sites is something that I've pretty much only seen Erik do here.
There are interesting issues and options to discuss here, and I've been calling for that. I'm glad both Brion and Robert Rhode have contributed some useful discussion.
(And on your part, I agree with the general position of moderation that you've held in your posts on this matter)
There is one thing you should consider, MediaWiki is not only used for educational purposes by the Wikimedia Foundation.
Indeed, which is why there are hundreds of MediaWiki extensions included in the repository which Wikimedia does not use. For example, http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Flash
There is a lot of great educational material available in Flash. This is a really strong argument when you use MediaWiki in an educational setting.
*There is*, but every single piece of it could have existed in Java instead, and the majority of what I've seen (almost anything that doesn't have synced audio, or video) of it could have been created using JS+DHTML+SVG and work in today's browsers without any plugins.
Most educational resources do not have the goals of freedom that Wikimedia has, so they will take the path of least resistance on these things. Our path is a little different, if it wasn't then we'd have no reason to exist.
And of course, there are issues of accessibility to the disabled, translatability to other human languages, compatibility with diverse and low powered computer systems, transferability into other non-computer mediums, ease or freedom of authorship and modification, survivability/archiveability (can people read it in 100 years?). Flash applets, and most other dynamic web toys/tools fail in all these areas, to a greater or lesser extent, which may influence our adoption of them more than it might influence some other educational groups.
The world doesn't end if we don't vacuum up all the internet's educational materials overnight. ;) We can, and do, direct people to other useful resources while we build, convert, and promote our enormous collection of entirely free knowledge.
In terms of not being an island recognizing that we don't need to subsume the whole world should be the first step.
Hoi, You argue as a developer; for a teacher it is irrelevant that something could have been build in another way. They need educational material, any material. The cost of replacing material is typically not an option. The quality of the available educational material is often lacking or missing to such an extend that it drives some of the more caring teachers into despair.
You compare what we do with the people that are in education, in Wikipedia we create an encyclopaedia our projects are concentrated on the Internet while in education there is a direct, personal relation with people who you are to teach, who are the next nurse at a bed, the next plumber repairing a faucet, the next clerk helping you with your bureaucratic nightmare.
I agree with you that we should not subsume the world, not all their base are ours. What we should do is build the best content that we can. It should be free. What we should do is build the best software that we can. It should be free. What we should do is promote the use of our platform, because it is free. While we are at it, we should be friendly and inviting to all the people who want to use our platform, who are willing to build extensions on top of our platform. We should be proud of the fact when an organisation like Kaltura chooses our platform to extend. When they succeed, we should rejoice and still our content will be free.
In the mean time, I am happy that BetaWiki supports the many extensions that it does. It is something to be proud of. I am happy that a MetaVid is supported among many, many others. The increasing quality of our localisation stimulates improvements in the management of extension messages. This is positive news, is this not what we are about ? Is this not the way we should reach out ?
We need people to help with localisation. We need people to make our content more accessible. There is so much work that still needs to be done before the potential that is our data, our platform is fully realised. These slideshows are new, they have the potential to do good. The Katura software is *not *only flash it is much more then that, if it were you would be right. Slideshows help in getting information across. They are really powerful. The combination with sound is important because it helps people that are not helped with static text and pictures only. The Kaltura framework is meant for collaborative editing... Why do I not hear people say WOW ?
It is nice that you care about what this data will be like in 100 years time. I do care as well, but I would suggest that we convert the old into the new when we get to a next format. This is how I managed tapes when I did system management and having the best operating system ever, I was able to run the software and use the data after 30 years. In the final analysis, we are providing a service now. This is what we should concentrate on and indeed we can be mindful of the future. Our future is in our technology, in our data and in how we treat each other. It is as much in our ability to be welcoming and in reaching out. Thanks, GerardM
On Jan 20, 2008 10:00 PM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On Jan 20, 2008 3:39 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Well given that as, from your point of view, this issue raises its ugly
head
yet again, it cannot be said that the community has reached consensus on this issue. There are people that do not share your opinion and are not afraid to say so. There are good arguments against the use of apparently
not
everybody bought into your ideas or weighs them and comes to a different conclusion.
Certainly, I'm not saying that it's unanimous. But advocating we should roll flash on the sites is something that I've pretty much only seen Erik do here.
There are interesting issues and options to discuss here, and I've been calling for that. I'm glad both Brion and Robert Rhode have contributed some useful discussion.
(And on your part, I agree with the general position of moderation that you've held in your posts on this matter)
There is one thing you should consider, MediaWiki is not only used for educational purposes by the Wikimedia Foundation.
Indeed, which is why there are hundreds of MediaWiki extensions included in the repository which Wikimedia does not use. For example, http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Flash
There is a lot of great educational material available in Flash. This is a really strong
argument
when you use MediaWiki in an educational setting.
*There is*, but every single piece of it could have existed in Java instead, and the majority of what I've seen (almost anything that doesn't have synced audio, or video) of it could have been created using JS+DHTML+SVG and work in today's browsers without any plugins.
Most educational resources do not have the goals of freedom that Wikimedia has, so they will take the path of least resistance on these things. Our path is a little different, if it wasn't then we'd have no reason to exist.
And of course, there are issues of accessibility to the disabled, translatability to other human languages, compatibility with diverse and low powered computer systems, transferability into other non-computer mediums, ease or freedom of authorship and modification, survivability/archiveability (can people read it in 100 years?). Flash applets, and most other dynamic web toys/tools fail in all these areas, to a greater or lesser extent, which may influence our adoption of them more than it might influence some other educational groups.
The world doesn't end if we don't vacuum up all the internet's educational materials overnight. ;) We can, and do, direct people to other useful resources while we build, convert, and promote our enormous collection of entirely free knowledge.
In terms of not being an island recognizing that we don't need to subsume the whole world should be the first step.
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On 20/01/2008, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, You argue as a developer; for a teacher it is irrelevant that something could have been build in another way. They need educational material, any material. The cost of replacing material is typically not an option. The quality of the available educational material is often lacking or missing to such an extend that it drives some of the more caring teachers into despair.
VLC media player is free and other ogg tools are free. Flash tends not to be beyond a certain point
I agree with you that we should not subsume the world, not all their base are ours. What we should do is build the best content that we can. It should be free. What we should do is build the best software that we can. It should be free. What we should do is promote the use of our platform, because it is free. While we are at it, we should be friendly and inviting to all the people who want to use our platform, who are willing to build extensions on top of our platform. We should be proud of the fact when an organisation like Kaltura chooses our platform to extend.
Lots of people have built stuff on mediawiki. Problem is people are doing more then being proud in this case.
We need people to help with localisation.
A US based startup is going to care about that why? we've already localised for most of the languages significant money is made in
Geni, We do not need Kaltura to do our localisation. Our own communities can and should do this. However, not even half of the languages we say we support have half of the most relevant messages translated. So when I write that there is a lot of work to do. We sure as hell have a lot of work to do.
Is VLC media player or are the OGG tools capable of creating collaboratively a slide show ? If not, what is your argument you are comparing things that cannot be compared.
You missed the point. It is not them that should be proud, it is US that should be proud. We should be proud because our platform has the critical mass where it makes a difference, the critical mass that attracts talent. We should be proud, and be welcoming. This does not mean that you have to involve yourself in the Kaltura project, that is for you to decide.
On Jan 20, 2008 11:22 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 20/01/2008, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, You argue as a developer; for a teacher it is irrelevant that something could have been build in another way. They need educational material,
any
material. The cost of replacing material is typically not an option. The quality of the available educational material is often lacking or
missing to
such an extend that it drives some of the more caring teachers into
despair.
VLC media player is free and other ogg tools are free. Flash tends not to be beyond a certain point
I agree with you that we should not subsume the world, not all their
base
are ours. What we should do is build the best content that we can. It
should
be free. What we should do is build the best software that we can. It
should
be free. What we should do is promote the use of our platform, because
it is
free. While we are at it, we should be friendly and inviting to all the people who want to use our platform, who are willing to build
extensions on
top of our platform. We should be proud of the fact when an organisation like Kaltura chooses our platform to extend.
Lots of people have built stuff on mediawiki. Problem is people are doing more then being proud in this case.
We need people to help with localisation.
A US based startup is going to care about that why? we've already localised for most of the languages significant money is made in
-- geni
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On 20/01/2008, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Geni, We do not need Kaltura to do our localisation. Our own communities can and should do this. However, not even half of the languages we say we support have half of the most relevant messages translated. So when I write that there is a lot of work to do. We sure as hell have a lot of work to do.
So it is irrelevant to this thread.
Is VLC media player or are the OGG tools capable of creating collaboratively a slide show ?
Sure doable with any non linear video editor. If you don't want to transcode Cinelerra would be slight overkill but you could do it. This assumes Theora of course Dirac would be more of a problem but we don't support it at this time. Your other option would be .odp which we don't support at the moment but should certainly be possible to support.
If you are prepared to transcode it is technically possible to do with non free tools.
If not, what is your argument you are comparing things that cannot be compared.
You missed the point. It is not them that should be proud, it is US that should be proud.
They got people running one of the top ten sites on the web to make at least slightly supportive comments about them. I think they should be proud
We should be proud because our platform has the critical mass where it makes a difference, the critical mass that attracts talent. We should be proud, and be welcoming.
A verify step it traditional.
[snip] On Jan 20, 2008 5:22 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
A US based startup is going to care about that why? we've already localised for most of the languages significant money is made in
[/snip]
Very true. Only reason we'd need to see it localized was if we adopted it ourself. As we've been told we're not, I fail to see a reason to invest the WMF's volunteer's time. Shouldn't we be writing articles rather than beta-testing someone else's product?
Chad
On Jan 20, 2008 5:22 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 20/01/2008, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, You argue as a developer; for a teacher it is irrelevant that something could have been build in another way. They need educational material, any material. The cost of replacing material is typically not an option. The quality of the available educational material is often lacking or missing to such an extend that it drives some of the more caring teachers into despair.
VLC media player is free and other ogg tools are free. Flash tends not to be beyond a certain point
I agree with you that we should not subsume the world, not all their base are ours. What we should do is build the best content that we can. It should be free. What we should do is build the best software that we can. It should be free. What we should do is promote the use of our platform, because it is free. While we are at it, we should be friendly and inviting to all the people who want to use our platform, who are willing to build extensions on top of our platform. We should be proud of the fact when an organisation like Kaltura chooses our platform to extend.
Lots of people have built stuff on mediawiki. Problem is people are doing more then being proud in this case.
We need people to help with localisation.
A US based startup is going to care about that why? we've already localised for most of the languages significant money is made in
-- geni
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On 20/01/2008, Chad innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
Very true. Only reason we'd need to see it localized was if we adopted it ourself. As we've been told we're not, I fail to see a reason to invest the WMF's volunteer's time. Shouldn't we be writing articles rather than beta-testing someone else's product?
Depends. It would be in our interests to provide whatever testing http://djvu.sourceforge.net/ require.
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Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Well given that as, from your point of view, this issue raises its ugly head yet again, it cannot be said that the community has reached consensus on this issue. There are people that do not share your opinion and are not afraid to say so. There are good arguments against the use of apparently not everybody bought into your ideas or weighs them and comes to a different conclusion.
There is one thing you should consider, MediaWiki is not only used for educational purposes by the Wikimedia Foundation. There is a lot of great educational material available in Flash. This is a really strong argument when you use MediaWiki in an educational setting.
The beautiful thing about MediaWiki is that since it is open source free software, ANYONE is free to add support for Flash if they wish. And they already have. There are MediaWiki plugins out there that use with Flash. So what exactly are you asking that we do, if it is already done? We should be focusing all of our effort on completely Free endeavors; if non-free applications, such as Flash, are useful to other people, well then they can do it themselves - and they have!
This is, of course, one of the huge strong points of free software that proprietary systems like Flash cannot ever hope to achieve. If you want to do something in Flash, Adobe has to have created it themselves. If you want to do something in MediaWiki (such as adding Flash support), you can simply do it yourself.
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Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Hoi, Nobody is saying that we should use it now. Everybody says that the situation with Flash is not good. Nobody holds their breath until Adobe releases its patents. But this whole situation is out of proportion, it is not what open source is about. When people wanted file server support they started the Samba http://us3.samba.org/samba/ project.
"Until Adobe releases its patents" - that's about as likely as hell freezing over. They're never going to do that when their entire business model consists of milking money from their widespread non-free proprietary system. That's why we can't use Flash - we have to use something that is truly free. There are all sorts of free software multimedia players released in Java that we can integrate into MediaWiki a lot more easily than this vaporware Flash player, so why are we even wasting our time on this partnership? And why are you vociferously defending it when it is so obviously not nearly the kind of thing we should be involving ourselves with?
And one final note: many of the patents that Flash is encumbered with, such as the MPG and audio patents, are not Adodbe's to release anyway. So even if they completely released the patents on their Flash technology (fat chance!), we still couldn't use them, because all of the codecs needed for media support are still proprietary and non-free. It's a completely dead end. Forget Kaltura and their vaporware product that we wouldn't be able to use even if it was completed - let's focus our efforts on proven free software solutions that already have significant functionality completed.
[snip] On Jan 20, 2008 3:07 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
So, you are doing good in adding "vaporware" to what is already insulting as it is. When you consider this freedom of speech, you may wonder why some people are not willing to communicate with you or do not consider your opinions.
[/snip]
I call it vaporware because that it what it is. A product with little to show and lots of promises of being better.
From our own article:
"Vaporware is a software or hardware product which is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge, either with or without a protracted development cycle. The term implies unwarranted optimism, or sometimes even deception; that is, it may imply that the announcer knows that product development is in too early a stage to support responsible statements about its completion date, feature set, or even feasibility."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vaporware&oldid=185186415
Secondly, I don't really pay attention to whether people agree with me. Unlike some who post to this list, I don't get an ego boost when everyone agrees with me. I honestly don't care enough about that. I just have my opinions and I wish to share them.
Chad
On Jan 20, 2008 3:07 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Nobody is saying that we should use it now. Everybody says that the situation with Flash is not good. Nobody holds their breath until Adobe releases its patents. But this whole situation is out of proportion, it is not what open source is about. When people wanted file server support they started the Samba http://us3.samba.org/samba/ project.
When you ask yourself why the WMF asks for people interested to cooperate, there are a cluster of reasons to be considered. A tool like this has educational merit. Wikieduacator, an organisation we are associated with, shows an interest. It does not cost us anything, but it has the potential of providing improved tooling.
When you ask yourself why would YOU collaborate or not collaborate it makes sense to ask if you consider it worth your time. You can discuss it on the mailing list and if the arguments are good for you by all means they are good enough to make up your mind.
All the technical reasons why you might want to lend a hand have NO bearing on why the WMF informs you about this opportunity. They do it for their own reasons. In essence, it has nothing to do with you. When the comparison was made with religion, you have to appreciate that those who believe are ferociously against those who do not hold the true faith. This behaviour is what I observe and from my point of view it is not pretty. This has led to diminished value of this, the foundation-l, because Mike decided that the tone of voice was too much even unacceptable. As a consequence we all suffer a loss because the distance between the foundation and the people of the community has grown wider.
So, you are doing good in adding "vaporware" to what is already insulting as it is. When you consider this freedom of speech, you may wonder why some people are not willing to communicate with you or do not consider your opinions. Thanks, GerardM
On Jan 20, 2008 7:05 PM, Chad innocentkiller@gmail.com wrote:
No, I think he's pointing out the issues with this that state why we shouldn't use it now; this has agreement, I believe. Not to mention, until Adobe releases those patents or makes Flash an open standard, there will never be a 100% (that's gratis AND libre) implementation of it, ever, as Ben said.
However, the question still remains: why is it the WMF's job to provide a PR boost for a (seemingly) startup? Wouldn't we get further by helping Gnash directly?
Somebody knows somebody, that much appears clear to me now.
Chad
On Jan 20, 2008 12:47 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Nice but what is your point and how does it relate to what is the issue?
The
issue is that a framework is being developed. It needs open source components to make it work and gnash has been mentioned as one component
in
all this that needs work. What you describe is exactly the reason why
work
needs to be done to make this type of content work well on Linux
So you describe that things do not work well. You provide the exact arguments why something needs to be done ... So you are in favour of the proposed collabaration... GREAT Thanks, GerardM
On Jan 20, 2008 6:32 PM, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
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Brion Vibber wrote:
In many cases that'll cover the same ground as non-free formats; the main exceptions are for patent-encumbered standards (eg, the MPEG
family
- MP3, AAC, H.264, etc) and widely-deployed proprietary formats that
have been reverse-engineered by FOSS developers (eg, Flash).
On the subject of Flash, I think it might help to relate my
experiences
so that everyone on this list knows how deficient it is on free
software
platforms. (This isn't directed to you Brion, as that'd just be preaching to the choir :-P )
I run GNU/Linux on my laptop. Pretty much everything works and I'm
able
to do everything I do in Windows, except Flash. First of all, the
free
software Flash alternatives simply aren't there yet. They aren't good enough for everyday use. And even if they were, they still wouldn't
be
free, because they're infringing on various patents that Adobe no
doubt
holds. And the free software stuff isn't good enough to create Flash either, so you still need to pay the tax in the form of the creator program (which as far as I know doesn't run on GNU/Linux). You can
see
why this is unacceptable.
Even the official Adobe Flash player plugin for Mozilla Firefox on GNU/Linux is deficient. It's treated like a third-rate product by Adobe, sometimes seeing major version updates many months after the Windows plugin is released. In the mean time, new Flash content that depends on the new features simply won't work. And the plugin itself
is
just bad. It frequently crashes Firefox, some of its functionality plain old doesn't work, etc. And nevermind that it's not free in any sense of the word except gratis; it's all binary, the source isn't available, so it's all entirely anti-libre.
- From where I stand, Flash isn't even an option to be considered in
fulfilling the Foundation's mission statement of "developing
educational
content under a free license or in the public domain". It won't even run on a completely free system, and it will only run poorly on a partially free system (giving in and installing their binary-only plugin). It is, simply, not what we are looking for. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (MingW32)
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On 2008.01.20 12:32:52 -0500, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com scribbled 2.3K characters: ...
Even the official Adobe Flash player plugin for Mozilla Firefox on GNU/Linux is deficient. It's treated like a third-rate product by Adobe, sometimes seeing major version updates many months after the Windows plugin is released. In the mean time, new Flash content that depends on the new features simply won't work. And the plugin itself is just bad. It frequently crashes Firefox, some of its functionality plain old doesn't work, etc. And nevermind that it's not free in any sense of the word except gratis; it's all binary, the source isn't available, so it's all entirely anti-libre.
From where I stand, Flash isn't even an option to be considered in fulfilling the Foundation's mission statement of "developing educational content under a free license or in the public domain". It won't even run on a completely free system, and it will only run poorly on a partially free system (giving in and installing their binary-only plugin). It is, simply, not what we are looking for.
Ooh, and don't forget if you use a half-way modern system (*cough*64-bit processor*cough*), you have to have the 32-bit libraries installed and misc. binaries (for emulation) enabled in the kernel!
-- gwern Freeh ASU 32 CIO GGL Force 97 b in Macintosh
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