[Foundation-l] Google Wave and Wikimedia projects

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Milos Rancic

30 May 2009 30 May '09

3:10 a.m.

Probably, some of you already saw that Google made something for which I think that it will be the new form of the mainstream Internet perception. You may read Slashdot article [1], a good description at the blog "Google Operating System" [2] (not officially connected with Google) and, of course, you may see the official site with more than one hour of presentation [3]. I expected such kind of tool (a client connected with others via P2P XML-based protocol; with servers for identification). However, I didn't expect that i will come so soon, that it will be done by one large corporation and that it will be done at the right way: open protocol, free software referent implementation. At the official site they said that it will start to work during this year. As one large corporation is behind the project, as well as free and open source community is able to participate, I have no doubts that it will be implemented all over the Internet (and not just Internet) very quickly. Probably, in two years the basic component of one modern operating system will not be a Web browser, but a Wave client. Probably, Web will become a storage system, while all of the interaction will be done via Waves. This development of Internet is very strongly related to the Wikimedia projects: * I want to be able to edit Wikipedia through the Wave client. * I want to add my own notes to articles, history of articles etc. * I want to have collection of my knowledge at one place, including Wikipedia articles and my notes. * I want to be able to make a program which would analyze articles on Wikipedia and to give program and/or analysis to my friends. * I want many more things to be browsable or editable or whatever from a Wave client... All of those my (but, in one year, not just my) wishes may be fulfilled just through work on MediaWiki and Pywikipediabot. So, I am calling all of you who are willing to think about it or who are at the position to think about it -- to start with thinking :) [1] - http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/05/28/1912226/Googles-Wave-Blurs-Chat-Ema… [2] - http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/05/google-wave.html [3] - http://wave.google.com/

Show replies by date

Chad

30 May 30 May

3:31 a.m.

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 3:10 PM, Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Very cool. Not sure if I buy into the "this is the future of the internet," but very very cool indeed. -Chad

Anthony

4:02 a.m.

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 3:31 PM, Chad <innocentkiller(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Very cool. Not sure if I buy into the "this is the future of the internet," but very very cool indeed.

Adding people to a conversation already in progress is cool. The rest of it...I dunno...what's the point?

Milos Rancic

7:33 a.m.

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 10:02 PM, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote:

...

Adding people to a conversation already in progress is cool. The rest of it...I dunno...what's the point?

Basically, moving the Internet usage from the client-server model to the peer-to-peer model with auxiliary role of servers. In other words, decentralization and personalization of Internet; the process very different from the centralization and unification [of look and feel] processes of last ~10 years. While P2P networks still exist, they are still 'Internet underground". If Google would be pushing Wave protocol, P2P will become mainstream.

Chad

7:37 a.m.

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 7:33 PM, Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 10:02 PM, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote:

Adding people to a conversation already in progress is cool. The rest of it...I dunno...what's the point?

It's still not really P2P. The server still acts as the intermediary and is where the data is stored. It's just really fast client-server. -Chad

Anthony

7:44 a.m.

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 7:37 PM, Chad <innocentkiller(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 7:33 PM, Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 10:02 PM, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote: > Adding people to a conversation already in progress is cool. The rest

it...I dunno...what's the point?

It's still not really P2P. The server still acts as the intermediary and is where the data is stored. It's just really fast client-server.

I think the P2P stands for "server2server"... The interserver protocol being the P2P part...

Anthony

7:42 a.m.

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 7:33 PM, Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 10:02 PM, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote:

Adding people to a conversation already in progress is cool. The rest of it...I dunno...what's the point?

That's an interesting way to look at it... While P2P networks still exist, they are still 'Internet underground".

...

If Google would be pushing Wave protocol, P2P will become mainstream.

That would be great, but wouldn't it also mean the death of Google and pretty much any company which relies on web advertising to make money? How do you make money off of P2P? Software and data license fees, I guess, but is Google really prepared to go to that model? And in a world where P2P means easy piracy, is the world ready?

Milos Rancic

8:10 a.m.

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 1:42 AM, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote:

...

Actually, I am very puzzled with that fact. (I don't have a clue how it looks like, but I suppose that the have the plan :) ) I just listed consequences of such approach. I was thinking a lot about very very similar approach, but I was thinking that it is just too radical to be implemented by one big company.

Thomas Dalton

8:12 a.m.

2009/5/30 Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com>om>:

...

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 1:42 AM, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote:

The Wave client will surely just have adverts in it, the same as gmail does... where is the mystery?

Milos Rancic

8:27 a.m.

I am not so sure about that after watching the video. Their implementation will be open source. I think that their main business will be selling storage on servers or something similar. We'll see... On 2009-05-30, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

2009/5/30 Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com>om>:

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 1:42 AM, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote:

The Wave client will surely just have adverts in it, the same as gmail does... where is the mystery? _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Gerard Meijssen

12:17 p.m.

Hoi, Did you see the presentation on Wave ? If so, you would know that it is not a given that your wave server would have adverts. It would also be clear that this content would not necessarily as in not at all be open to Google to data mine. Thanks, GerardM http://wave.google.com 2009/5/30 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>

...

2009/5/30 Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com>om>:

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 1:42 AM, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote: > That would be great, but wouldn't it also mean the death of Google and > pretty much any company which relies on web advertising to make money?

How

> do you make money off of P2P? Software and data license fees, I guess,

but

is Google really prepared to go to that model? And in a world where P2P means easy piracy, is the world ready?

Judson Dunn

31 May 31 May

3:17 a.m.

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 6:42 PM, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote:

...

Well, the protocol is very much not P2P in the normal sense, there are authoritative servers, and secure XMPP connections for everything. It's a peered protocol in terms of the servers though, like smtp. Plenty of companies make money on smtp/pop/imap now, I don't see this being any different. Gmail has ads, so why not wave clients. Sure you will be able to load up thunderbird, or mail.app or something and not see ads, but if google makes a better client, people will use it. It's not zero-sum. I think email is a better analogy for a lot of this. Judson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cohesion

Thomas Dalton

30 May 30 May

7:50 a.m.

2009/5/30 Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com>om>:

...

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 10:02 PM, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote:

Adding people to a conversation already in progress is cool. The rest of it...I dunno...what's the point?

I don't get it... this is just MSN Messenger on steroids. It's a great idea and if it works it should be really useful, but it isn't world-changing and certainly isn't going to restructure the internet.

David Gerard

7:58 a.m.

2009/5/30 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>om>:

...

No, no - it's Google Chat on steroids! With email and groups and uh other stuff! Picasa! And you can save it all as Knols! - d.

Milos Rancic

8:19 a.m.

It would be <whatever> on steroids as a proprietary software model or free-client-proprietary-server model. However, this model have the same potential as email had a couple of decades ago. On 2009-05-30, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

2009/5/30 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>om>:

No, no - it's Google Chat on steroids! With email and groups and uh other stuff! Picasa! And you can save it all as Knols! - d. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Thomas Dalton

8:24 a.m.

2009/5/30 Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com>om>:

...

It would be <whatever> on steroids as a proprietary software model or free-client-proprietary-server model. However, this model have the same potential as email had a couple of decades ago.

Not really. This isn't that different to existing technology, it's just bringing together various things we already do. It's a common feature in the development of technologies, and it's a great thing, but it isn't anything that is going to change the world. E-mail, once it let the military/academia, was a completely new thing, there wasn't anything like it before (the closest thing was telegrams, which charged by the word, could take a few hours to reach their destination and couldn't have attachments).

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

3:27 p.m.

Thomas Dalton wrote:

...

E-mail, once it let the military/academia, was a completely new thing, there wasn't anything like it before (the closest thing was telegrams, which charged by the word, could take a few hours to reach their destination and couldn't have attachments).

Not even courier mail? Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

Thomas Dalton

8:24 p.m.

2009/5/30 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro(a)gmail.com>om>:

...

Thomas Dalton wrote:

Not even courier mail?

Courier mail is far far slower than email or telegrams (for long distance, at least). I've just watched the first 20 minutes of the presentation and there doesn't seem to be anything new, it's just combining existing stuff in a fancy way. It's a great app, and I may well use it, but it isn't going to change the world. It's part of an incremental progression, it's not a paradigm shift.

Domas Mituzas

9:25 p.m.

...

It's a great app,

look at it the other way! finally someone implemented LiquidThreads! Cheers, Domas

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

31 May 31 May

2:11 p.m.

Thomas Dalton wrote:

...

2009/5/30 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro(a)gmail.com>om>:

Thomas Dalton wrote:

Not even courier mail?

For sure. I was just burying the point that telegrams are not the best comparison. Courier mail did the thing much slower, but it got the thing done. Telegrams were for when you needed the immediacy that E-mail now gives for free.(spam notwithstanding) Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen

Thomas Dalton

8:09 p.m.

2009/5/31 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro(a)gmail.com>om>:

...

Indeed. My point was that there *isn't* a good comparison. You can think of it as really fast courier mail, but that doesn't do it justice. You can think of it as free telegrams with attachments, but that doesn't do it justice. E-mail really was a whole new concept, it wasn't just an extension or improvement of existing concepts. Google Waves are just an improvement on existing concepts - the improvement being bringing them all together in one app.

Gerard Meijssen

8:30 p.m.

Hoi, Thinking of Google Wave as an application is not doing it justice. In my opinion the most important part of Wave is its protocol. This is best appreciated in that Google expects production quality code to go with the "reference implementation". This reference implementation in turn will be available to whoever wants it to have an own Wave server. The point is that by concentrating on the protocol and the associated reference implementation, wave is more like e-mail and less like outlook or thunderbird, it is more like a wiki and less like MediaWiki or pbwiki and it is more like instant messaging and less like IRC or Microsoft Messenger. You may implement the Wave protocol in any way you like, the beauty of the accompanying reference implementation is that nobody can hide what the protocols are to mean. It is not like Microsoft who does not even implement its own (standard) protocols cleanly in its Office implementation. Thanks, GerardM <grin> thinking of open standards, how about an OpenID implementation to go with Wave </grin> 2009/5/31 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>

...

2009/5/31 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro(a)gmail.com>om>:

Thomas Dalton

8:40 p.m.

2009/5/31 Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com>om>:

...

Hoi, Thinking of Google Wave as an application is not doing it justice. In my opinion the most important part of Wave is its protocol.

You're absolutely right, but I still think it is the fact that all these things are in one app that is important, but it is equally important to remember that it doesn't have to be Google's app they are all in.

Anthony

30 May 30 May

9:55 a.m.

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 8:19 PM, Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

It would be <whatever> on steroids as a proprietary software model or free-client-proprietary-server model. However, this model have the same potential as email had a couple of decades ago.

Probably more comparable to the web than email. But what are people going to build for it? Geocities? I guess P2Pedia is finally possible.

Judson Dunn

31 May 31 May

3:11 a.m.

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 6:58 PM, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

2009/5/30 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>om>:

No, no - it's Google Chat on steroids! With email and groups and uh other stuff! Picasa! And you can save it all as Knols!

Of it's word processing on steroids, or forums, or group wikis... The fact that it is all these things in one fairly simple to use interface is why people are excited. I can't sell my luddite co-workers on the idea of a blog, or a wiki, but this is more obviously approachable. For more normal web users, there are obviously a lot of advanced uses as well. Judson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cohesion

Peter Coombe

5:52 a.m.

2009/5/30 Judson Dunn <cohesion(a)sleepyhead.org>rg>:

...

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 6:58 PM, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:

2009/5/30 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>om>:

No, no - it's Google Chat on steroids! With email and groups and uh other stuff! Picasa! And you can save it all as Knols!

Of it's word processing on steroids, or forums, or group wikis...

The best description I've seen so far was "FriendFeed... with benefits" :-) Pete / the wub

Judson Dunn

5:59 a.m.

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 4:52 PM, Peter Coombe <thewub.wiki(a)googlemail.com> wrote:

...

The best description I've seen so far was "FriendFeed... with benefits" :-)

Right, it's not entirely new, which is I think why some people are saying it isn't a big deal. The problem is, it's only not new for people like us. We obviously see parallels to talk pages, and wikis, and other collaborative software. Most people have never really used a wiki, or even a mailing list. And I mean most people in developed countries who use computers. This interface is simple enough that it offers the benefits of wikis, mailing lists, and shared documents to people who can currently only use email. That's why it's important. Judson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cohesion

Lars Aronsson

7:40 a.m.

Judson Dunn wrote:

...

I can't sell my luddite co-workers on the idea of a blog, or a wiki, but this is more obviously approachable. For more normal web users, there are obviously a lot of advanced uses as well.

Google Wave combines many concepts, such as mail discussion threads, Twitter-like short message discussions, instant messaging, wiki-like edit history and an animated playback. The idea of showing diffs since the user last viewed the same wave, is very similar to Flagged revisions. My guess is that this mix is too advanced for most users and will be a hard sell, almost like an automobile with a joystick (like an airplane) instead of a steering wheel. As a stand-alone server on a developer team intranet server, this might be useful, perhaps a competitor to MediaWiki+Bugzilla or Trac. But the server-to-server federation protocol is useful only when many others run compatible servers, and that could take a long time. Google can of course let GMail and Blogger run this protocol, but that doesn't mean all existing users will start to understand "wave" conversations. Instead, old-school e-mail conversations might take place over this new protocol. -- Lars Aronsson (lars(a)aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se

Thomas Dalton

8:16 a.m.

2009/5/31 Lars Aronsson <lars(a)aronsson.se>se>:

...

The idea of showing diffs since the user last viewed the same wave, is very similar to Flagged revisions.

How is it in any way like Flagged revisions?

Lars Aronsson

1 Jun 1 Jun

11:37 p.m.

Thomas Dalton wrote:

...

2009/5/31 Lars Aronsson <lars(a)aronsson.se>se>:

The idea of showing diffs since the user last viewed the same wave, is very similar to Flagged revisions.

How is it in any way like Flagged revisions?

...

From the video, the user interface color marked the differences in

the wave since I last looked at it. I thought of this as the diff since the last flagged (approved) version. It's a collaboratively edited document with a linear version history (like RCS or wiki), but with bookmarks (flags) for certain previous versions. I didn't say it's an equivalent, but some ideas are familiar. The mention of a "patent license" should make us worried. Does Google, for example, have a patent on the animated playback? Should we need a patent for "flagged revisions" to counter that? -- Lars Aronsson (lars(a)aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se

Thomas Dalton

2 Jun 2 Jun

12:27 a.m.

2009/6/1 Lars Aronsson <lars(a)aronsson.se>se>:

...

Thomas Dalton wrote:

2009/5/31 Lars Aronsson <lars(a)aronsson.se>se>:

The idea of showing diffs since the user last viewed the same wave, is very similar to Flagged revisions.

How is it in any way like Flagged revisions?

I suppose. The key thing with Flagged Revisions, though, is that one person flags a revision for everyone. Just having a flag on the last revision you saw isn't really the same thing. It would probably require a whole new database table to implement, as well. FlaggedRevs just requires an extra column in an existing table (MediaWiki's implementation may have more than that, but the basic concept doesn't require it).

...

The mention of a "patent license" should make us worried. Does Google, for example, have a patent on the animated playback? Should we need a patent for "flagged revisions" to counter that?

We have no intention of defending such a patent, so there is no point taking one out. It would still qualify as prior art without having been patented, wouldn't it? Hopefully any relevant patents they do take out will be released under some kind of free license (I'm not sure what the point of patenting it would be, in that case, though).

Gerard Meijssen

12:27 a.m.

Hoi, Lars PLEASE read the license before you comment. Thanks, GerardM 2009/6/1 Lars Aronsson <lars(a)aronsson.se>

...

Thomas Dalton wrote:

2009/5/31 Lars Aronsson <lars(a)aronsson.se>se>:

The idea of showing diffs since the user last viewed the same wave, is very similar to Flagged revisions.

How is it in any way like Flagged revisions?

From the video, the user interface color marked the differences in the wave since I last looked at it. I thought of this as the diff since the last flagged (approved) version. It's a collaboratively edited document with a linear version history (like RCS or wiki), but with bookmarks (flags) for certain previous versions. I didn't say it's an equivalent, but some ideas are familiar. The mention of a "patent license" should make us worried. Does Google, for example, have a patent on the animated playback? Should we need a patent for "flagged revisions" to counter that? -- Lars Aronsson (lars(a)aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Lars Aronsson

3 Jun 3 Jun

3:44 a.m.

Gerard Meijssen wrote:

...

Lars PLEASE read the license before you comment.

Of course I have read the short license text at http://www.waveprotocol.org/patent-license It says that as long as we follow Google's protocol standard, they won't sue us for infringing on their patents ("patents necessarily infringed by implementation of this specification"). Oh, how very generous. But what if we want to implement some of their features in MediaWiki without following their protocol? That is where we should be worried. What exactly is it that they have patented? -- Lars Aronsson (lars(a)aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se

Milos Rancic

11:39 a.m.

On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 9:44 PM, Lars Aronsson <lars(a)aronsson.se> wrote:

...

It says that as long as we follow Google's protocol standard, they won't sue us for infringing on their patents ("patents necessarily infringed by implementation of this specification"). Oh, how very generous. But what if we want to implement some of their features in MediaWiki without following their protocol? That is where we should be worried. What exactly is it that they have patented?

What if we want to implement any of patented features in MediaWiki? BTW, I am really skeptical about the idea that one large Internet company sues Wikimedia or MediaWiki developers for their patents. It would be a really bad PR for them.

Ray Saintonge

4 Jun 4 Jun

1:22 a.m.

Milos Rancic wrote:

...

On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 9:44 PM, Lars Aronsson <lars(a)aronsson.se> wrote:

The history of lawsuits often shows that protecting vested interests is more important than PR, and that PR departments devote themselves more to building justifications for lawsuits. In the last few years the recording and movie industries have appeared quite foolish in their prosecutions of those who share music and films. Even when they win in court they inspire others to seek ways to work around the obstacles. Ec

Milos Rancic

10:39 p.m.

On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 7:22 PM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:

...

Milos Rancic wrote:

BTW, I am really skeptical about the idea that one large Internet company sues Wikimedia or MediaWiki developers for their patents. It would be a really bad PR for them.

I mentioned "Internet company", not "a company". I really don't think that Google, Facebook or Amazon are so stupid to sue WMF or anything strongly connected with WMF because their business is strongly connected to the perception of their behavior (by Internet users). I don't think that Microsoft would do that and I don't believe that Apple has suicidal intentions (even they have problems with some parts of free culture movement).

Anthony

5 Jun 5 Jun

12:19 a.m.

On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 10:39 AM, Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

I really don't think that Google, Facebook or Amazon are so stupid to sue WMF or anything strongly connected with WMF because their business is strongly connected to the perception of their behavior (by Internet users).

They think it is, anyway. At least, Google ("don't be evil") and Facebook ("let's let everyone vote on our policies") do. I don't know about Amazon. Whether or not it actually is, I'm not so sure. Isn't your behavior more important to your business than the perception of your behavior? Maybe not when it comes to Internet companies - that would explain a lot, anyway.

...

I don't think that Microsoft would do that

Microsoft is actually an excellent example of the fact that popular perceptions of a company's behavior are not very important. But then, they're not an Internet company.

Robert Rohde

3 Jun 3 Jun

12:14 p.m.

On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 12:44 PM, Lars Aronsson <lars(a)aronsson.se> wrote:

...

Gerard Meijssen wrote:

Lars PLEASE read the license before you comment.

Assuming Google is intending to be "not evil" about this, I would guess the point of the intellectual property (e.g. patents and trademarks) is to prevent people from creating things that are called and/or identify themselves as Wave servers and yet don't conform to the communications protocol. And there is a reasonable point there. Regardless of what features and services a server might offer, it is still important that the underlying communications protocol be something that all parties can make sense of, otherwise your network gets bogged down in gibberish. Anyway, that's the optimistic interpretation. -Robert Rohde

Tim Starling

12:31 p.m.

Robert Rohde wrote:

...

The optimistic interpretation is that it is what is called a "defensive patent", and that they don't intend to enforce it at all. The USPTO is notoriously bad at finding related work that doesn't come up when they search their own patent database, so a defensive patent can be useful to prevent similar patents being registered by competitors. It may also be useful to strike down future patents in court. Red Hat, for instance, have taken this approach: https://www.redhat.com/legal/patent_policy.html Some people have suggested that Wikimedia should register some defensive patents, although they probably didn't realise how much time and money is involved in registering and maintaining the things. -- Tim Starling

Steven Walling

1:22 p.m.

FYI everyone, I let Frederic at ReadWriteWeb know that there was some interest from Wikimedians about Wave integration, and he kindly linked<http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_wave_our_first_hands-… a sample of the thread in his post about his impressions after a demo. The unfortunate side is that his general impression is that it was more like super enahnced email/IM than wiki. Steven Walling On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 9:31 PM, Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org>wrote;wrote:

...

Robert Rohde wrote:

Gerard Meijssen

1:40 p.m.

Hoi, The good news in this blogentry is that people outside of Google have access to it. When you read the text at readwriteweb, you will not see the word wiki once. You read the question what use the history tool will have ... exactly one of the things that would make a big difference for us. All things considered, this review is written by someone who seems not to be involved in the Wiki world. On a different note, the first code to bring MediaWiki content in a Wave has been written. We would love to test it. Can someone get us access to the Wave developer environment??? Thanks, GerardM 2009/6/3 Steven Walling <steven.walling(a)gmail.com>

...

a sample of the thread in his post about his impressions after a demo. The unfortunate side is that his general impression is that it was more like super enahnced email/IM than wiki. Steven Walling On Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 9:31 PM, Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org

wrote:

Robert Rohde wrote:

_______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Domas Mituzas

3:20 p.m.

Hi,

...

On a different note, the first code to bring MediaWiki content in a Wave

We should have fun-l@ for conversations like this. First of all, if any of you who are interested in wave-ization of teh internet, go join the wave community and push the standard towards lazy on-demand loading, and ability to roll changes backwards. Unless. of course, 50000 <waveops> for single wavelet are not frightening you, and of course more participants will happily enjoy their every keystroke shown as waveop, ... Maybe google has invented javascript that doesn't use memory nor CPU cycles. Good then! Cheers, Domas

Gerard Meijssen

8:02 p.m.

Hoi, I am glad that there is still some work to do.. God forbid that Wave would be the all singing, all dancing replacement for all other software under the sun. Now, I am an optimist and I am happy that the first code to bring MediaWiki content in a Wave, I am glad that my optimism is tempered with the "realism" of outstanding issues. So let us be realistic.. Even in Wikipedia you will not have thousands of people editing *at the same time* in a document. Showing every key stroke is something that can be suppressed. In my opinion it only makes sense to follow all changes when it is a document that is on your watch list. You only want to see what other people are editing when you are editing yourself. Domas if I can come up with such answers, when I as an eternal optimist agree with you that integration of MediaWiki content let alone replacement of MediaWiki is something else I am sure that it is too easy to ridicule a first effort. In your reply you mention javascript, is that based on reading about the "embed" API ?? I think that the relevant protocols are peer to peer and XML.. Indeed a computer does not have an endless supply of CPU or memory but your computer talks to your wave server.. and your wave server talks to wave servers peered in the conversation.. Indeed it sounds like fun, but I do not want to deprive the foundation-l of all the fun. In the mean time, can you get us access to the Wave environment? I would appreciate such a positive gesture :) Thanks, GerardM 2009/6/3 Domas Mituzas <midom.lists(a)gmail.com>

...

Hi,

On a different note, the first code to bring MediaWiki content in a Wave

Domas Mituzas

9:02 p.m.

Hello,

...

So let us be realistic.. Even in Wikipedia you will not have thousands of people editing *at the same time* in a document.

But documents have tens of thousands of revisions, still.

...

In your reply you mention javascript, is that based on reading about the "embed" API ??

um, did html5 already get <wave> tag? :-)

...

I think that the relevant protocols are peer to peer and XML..

XMPP (aka Jabber) with 'operational transformation' streams of events (read, lots of micro-diffs).

...

Indeed a computer does not have an endless supply of CPU or memory but your computer talks to your wave server..

And yet, does have to handle all the revision history in javascript. :)

...

and your wave server talks to wave servers peered in the conversation.. Indeed it sounds like fun, but I do not want to deprive the foundation-l of all the fun.

*shrug*, "peered", but still you have to maintain central authority for certain 'waves'. it isn't magic 'peer to peer cloud' thing. it is just protocol, that allows federation. on the other hand, federation doesn't always work well, when you have to do operations on vast sets of data.

...

In the mean time, can you get us access to the Wave environment? I would appreciate such a positive gesture :)

Unfortunately, your appreciation does not sum up well with the other wave motivation (which is at around zero at the moment). Cheers, Domas

Gerard Meijssen

1:21 p.m.

Hoi, There are two things to consider; - when you develop using the Wave protocol the license covers your work - Wave is based on the Google Web Toolkit The Google Web Toolkit has a different license, it is licensed under the Apache license. So again I do not share your opinion that we can not use the technology involved. I will say that we cannot contribute back. So I think the uncooperative shoe is on our foot not Google's. Thanks, GerardM http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/makinggwtbetter.html#licensing 2009/6/2 Lars Aronsson <lars(a)aronsson.se>

...

Gerard Meijssen wrote:

Lars PLEASE read the license before you comment.

Judson Dunn

2 Jun 2 Jun

5:34 a.m.

On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 10:37 AM, Lars Aronsson <lars(a)aronsson.se> wrote:

...

The mention of a "patent license" should make us worried. Does Google, for example, have a patent on the animated playback? Should we need a patent for "flagged revisions" to counter that?

Their patent license is basically just saying that *if* google has any patents, you are free to use them, and google will not sue you, so that other big companies and organizations implement this without taking forever to worry about google suing them. http://www.waveprotocol.org/patent-license "Google and its affiliates hereby grant to you a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this License) patent license for patents necessarily infringed by implementation of this specification." The revocation happens if you sue someone else for patent infringement, it's really pretty positive, actually. Judson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cohesion

Domas Mituzas

6:06 a.m.

...

"Google and its affiliates hereby grant to you a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable (except as stated in this License) patent license for patents necessarily infringed by implementation of this specification."

so, if you want to extend the specification, you're not protected by that? :) Cheers, Domas

Gerard Meijssen

6:30 a.m.

Hoi, If you want to extend the specification, you can .. BUT you have to provide working code that integrates with the reference implementation AND you have to provide this with the same license. This means that all extensions to the protocol will allow you to use them safely because you will have the necessary license to do so. Thanks, GerardM 2009/6/2 Domas Mituzas <midom.lists(a)gmail.com>

...

so, if you want to extend the specification, you're not protected by that? :) Cheers, Domas _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Anthony

3 Jun 3 Jun

1:35 a.m.

On Mon, Jun 1, 2009 at 5:34 PM, Judson Dunn <cohesion(a)sleepyhead.org> wrote:

...

The revocation happens if you sue someone else for patent infringement, it's really pretty positive, actually.

"(including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit)"... Interesting... What if you have a patent under the same license? Lawsuit deterrence by mutual assured destruction?

Judson Dunn

31 May 31 May

11:42 a.m.

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 6:40 PM, Lars Aronsson <lars(a)aronsson.se> wrote:

...

Judson Dunn wrote:

I can't sell my luddite co-workers on the idea of a blog, or a wiki, but this is more obviously approachable. For more normal web users, there are obviously a lot of advanced uses as well.

Definitely all of that is too advanced, but I don't think people have to use all of that. You can very easily think of it as email if you aren't that tech savvy, but with a few new features that maybe you don't understand that well. If there is a big voting button in an email people will understand how that works, even if they don't understand how the wave extension api works. I also don't really think this is immediately relevant to wikipedia, but it's interesting getting other wikipedians views on the topic. I think we have a lot of experience in collaborative software. :) Judson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cohesion

Brian

9:33 a.m.

How does Google Wave help the WMF achieve its goals? Wikipedia has already become a dominant information source for the 1.5 billion people with Internet access thanks to Google. We need to focus on getting Wikipedia to the 5.2 billion people who can't access it. On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 1:31 PM, Chad <innocentkiller(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 3:10 PM, Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com> wrote:

projects:

* I want to be able to edit Wikipedia through the Wave client. * I want to add my own notes to articles, history of articles etc. * I want to have collection of my knowledge at one place, including Wikipedia articles and my notes. * I want to be able to make a program which would analyze articles on Wikipedia and to give program and/or analysis to my friends. * I want many more things to be browsable or editable or whatever from a Wave client... All of those my (but, in one year, not just my) wishes may be fulfilled just through work on MediaWiki and Pywikipediabot. So, I am calling all of you who are willing to think about it or who are at the position to think about it -- to start with thinking :) [1] -

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/05/28/1912226/Googles-Wave-Blurs-Chat-Ema…

[2] - http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/05/google-wave.html [3] - http://wave.google.com/ _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Very cool. Not sure if I buy into the "this is the future of the internet," but very very cool indeed. -Chad _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Gerard Meijssen

2:18 p.m.

Hoi, When you want to consider Wave in combination with Wikipedia, there are a few "easy" answers to this. The first is that Wave is massively easier to use. When you combine the existing Wave technology with MediaWiki, you will improve usability for MediaWiki. When you bring MediaWiki content to Wave, you integrate knowledge into Wave.. The fact that Wikipedia currently is as dominantly as it is, is only true for some languages certainly not all languages. When you look at African languages, Wikipedia is a no show. Wave already has some integration with mobiles. When we start to think in terms of bringing Wikipedia to the languages where there are many people and where we are weak, we must do much better even with our current software platform. Wave as it is will work as an overlay. It currently supports a few languages and we support over 300. So when we were to adopt Wave we would face a challenge. This is however a challenge we are getting better at because of translatewiki.net. When you want to focus on the people who do not get the Wikipedia message, usability is with internationalisation and localisation something we are starting to address. Wave could be, if it indeed fits our needs as I suspect, be a shot in the arm on usability. Thanks, GerardM 2009/5/31 Brian <Brian.Mingus(a)colorado.edu>

...

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 3:10 PM, Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com> wrote:

projects:

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/05/28/1912226/Googles-Wave-Blurs-Chat-Ema…

_______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Gerard Meijssen

30 May 30 May

3:57 a.m.

Hoi, A programmer friend of mine has had a look at the documentation that is already available and wants to integrate MediaWiki and Wave. The one thing that he wants at this time is access to Wave as a developer and realise this dream... The question is how do I get access for him. Wave's demoes are quite awesome, the notion to be able to mash Wikipedia and all the other MediaWiki content would be as awesome. Who can help out ? Thanks, GerardM 2009/5/29 Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com>

...

Milos Rancic

7:01 a.m.

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 9:57 PM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Who can help out ?

Erik?

Erik Moeller

10:26 a.m.

2009/5/29 Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com>om>:

...

I've watched pieces of the presentation, but not the whole thing. Is it clear at this point exactly how free/open the entire stack is going to be? I.e. will it have dependencies on proprietary services to work or work well? It could be quite compelling. I'm happy to talk to them about early access on behalf of interested Wikimedia volunteers. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

Anthony

11:01 a.m.

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 10:26 PM, Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

...

2009/5/29 Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com>om>:

They say that messages which don't have recipients on google's server will never go through google. So, sounds like the protocol will be completely open, and that there won't be any dependencies on proprietary services. They must have something up their sleeves, though. Or maybe not. How much does Google make off of gmail compared to its total profits? As a shareholder I guess I should know that. Maybe they'll keep the search part proprietary. And the translation, spell checking, and other parts that aren't necessary for the reference implementation. And hope that's enough.

Judson Dunn

31 May 31 May

3:38 a.m.

On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 9:26 PM, Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

...

2009/5/29 Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com>om>:

The protocol is completely open, and published: http://www.waveprotocol.org/ Their wave client is going to be opened, and will server as the reference implementation. My real guess is they open source a reference implementation that works, but isn't their actual client. Some people on twitter and in the wave protocol mailing list have been saying that their client is very dependent on google server structure, and needs to be normalized before it's open sourced. I don't think this is a big deal though. gmail isn't open source, but thunderbird is, and they can send and receive email to each other. If google is going to make an open source client that people can look at and start from also, great. (this is just a guess, they may open source their actual server side version, but i really can't see that...) The Extensions, and robots and gadgets api is open, BUT 3rd party developers don't have to open source their work. So, some of the things they showed like the maps gadget, and the spellcheck are what they are calling internal extensions. They have a lot of these up already with source code http://code.google.com/apis/wave/samples/index.html but I certainly wouldn't expect all 3rd party people to do this (facebook extension etc) Judson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cohesion

Tim Starling

30 May 30 May

1:13 p.m.

Milos Rancic wrote:

...

It's not free software. The blog post says they "intend to open source the code". That generally means the code quality is so bad that they'd be embarrassed to make it public, and would like to clean it up to the point where humans can understand it, but currently they have more important development priorities and no schedule to do such a thing.

...

At the official site they said that it will start to work during this year. As one large corporation is behind the project, as well as free and open source community is able to participate, I have no doubts that it will be implemented all over the Internet (and not just Internet) very quickly. Probably, in two years the basic component of one modern operating system will not be a Web browser, but a Wave client. Probably, Web will become a storage system, while all of the interaction will be done via Waves.

Yeah, sure. Like the way Jabber killed proprietary protocols like MSN and AIM, right? It's been 9 years since the first release now. The proprietary IM networks will steal the best ideas from Wave and add their own bit of marketing spin, which somehow, to the hoards of faithful users, will seem even cooler than what Google Wave can do. That's assuming they even perceive a threat. Anyway, I'm putting two years from today into my calendar. We'll see then whether Wave has taken over the world. I'll post a followup.

...

This development of Internet is very strongly related to the Wikimedia projects: * I want to be able to edit Wikipedia through the Wave client. * I want to add my own notes to articles, history of articles etc. * I want to have collection of my knowledge at one place, including Wikipedia articles and my notes. * I want to be able to make a program which would analyze articles on Wikipedia and to give program and/or analysis to my friends. * I want many more things to be browsable or editable or whatever from a Wave client... All of those my (but, in one year, not just my) wishes may be fulfilled just through work on MediaWiki and Pywikipediabot. So, I am calling all of you who are willing to think about it or who are at the position to think about it -- to start with thinking :)

You're assuming that they'll be easier to implement using Wave than just starting from scratch. Note that their widget things are HTML, and browsers already have rich text editors. An interactive editor targeting Wave would be quite similar to an interactive editor targeting the browser. Browsers are something Microsoft actually supports and packages with their OS, unlike federated, open-protocol IM clients, which as we've seen over the past 9 years, they are not interested in. They've even discontinued their IRC client. -- Tim Starling

Gerard Meijssen

1:42 p.m.

Hoi, I have seen the presentation.. I have noticed that there were plenty of moments where it was stated that this is an early version of the software and that it needs more polishing. At this same presentation all the developers that were in this room received an invite to start developing extensions to Wave. Documentation on how to do this is available. When you ask external developers to involve themselves with a platform like Wave, there is a limited amount of time to keep the product from general availability. When Google would stall too long, it would reflect badly on their reputation and it would make it more difficult for them to get such involvement in the future. Google will have a schedule and, I would love to know this. At this time all Google has indicated that they are going to Open Source Wave. For me there are two questions; what license and, how are they going to manage the underlying protocol. When Google play their cards right, Wave and its protocols have the potential to dominate this scene. Given that they are at this very same time they are getting the message out that Ogg Theora will be supported by Chrome, they are indicating that concerns about free and open content and protocols are heard and taken to heart. I am not interested in what Microsoft has to say about this; their "bing" is not relevant to me because of Microsoft's policies with their previous incarnations of a search engine. When "other" people are going to benefit from the ideas that make Wave so relevant, I can only hope that the Open Source world will be among them. Given the announcement that Wave will be Open Source, it is important to be involved and make sure that it will indeed be Open Source and, that the Open Source paradigm will happen sooner rather then later. Thanks, GerardM 2009/5/30 Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org>

...

Milos Rancic wrote:

This development of Internet is very strongly related to the Wikimedia

projects:

Milos Rancic

6:49 p.m.

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 7:13 AM, Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

...

This is why that (very long) presentation is important. They clearly said that they want to make their implementation as the referent open source implementation.

...

Yeah, sure. Like the way Jabber killed proprietary protocols like MSN and AIM, right? It's been 9 years since the first release now.

This is a completely other path. As I said, I thought that the development of something almost identical to the Wave would be much slower. However, at this point, there is one large corporation behind it and it is not partially, like they are behind XMPP with their Gtalk.

...

The proprietary IM networks will steal the best ideas from Wave and add their own bit of marketing spin, which somehow, to the hoards of faithful users, will seem even cooler than what Google Wave can do. That's assuming they even perceive a threat.

Yes, this is potential problem.

...

Anyway, I'm putting two years from today into my calendar. We'll see then whether Wave has taken over the world. I'll post a followup.

...

Actually, they did everything with their web toolkit. And, as they said, all of the code pieces will be free. They explained that you would be able to make your own implementation based on their code. Hm... Find one hour and take a look into the presentation. It would be better than my tries to explain it to you.

...

Browsers are something Microsoft actually supports and packages with their OS, unlike federated, open-protocol IM clients, which as we've seen over the past 9 years, they are not interested in. They've even discontinued their IRC client.

There will be web interface, too.

Anthony

7:24 p.m.

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 6:49 AM, Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 7:13 AM, Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

Yeah, sure. Like the way Jabber killed proprietary protocols like MSN and AIM, right? It's been 9 years since the first release now.

If AOL had built XMPP into AIM in 1997, the story would have played out much differently.

...

The proprietary IM networks will steal the best ideas from Wave and

add their own bit of marketing spin, which somehow, to the hoards of faithful users, will seem even cooler than what Google Wave can do. That's assuming they even perceive a threat.

Yes, this is potential problem.

It's weird, because what I see as the killer apps for this have nothing to do with instant messaging, and nothing to do with email either. I'm not sure if it'll catch on, because Google seems to have added so much extraneous crap into the mix, but given the ability of people to adapt Google services to novel uses, maybe it will catch on. I don't plan on replacing my email or instant messenger with this (though hopefully plain old vanilla gmail will be built in and I won't have to). I might replace my Google Reader, though, when someone comes up with an RSS bot. I might also replace a few private wikis I have, especially if my friends on those private wikis find Wave easier to use. My initial dislike of the idea turned when I stopped trying to think of Wave as email, as Google is pushing it.

...

Browsers are something Microsoft actually supports and packages with

their OS, unlike federated, open-protocol IM clients, which as we've seen over the past 9 years, they are not interested in. They've even discontinued their IRC client.

There will be web interface, too.

I thought that's all it was was a web interface... IIRC the preview was run in Chrome and Firefox, wasn't it?

Milos Rancic

7:30 p.m.

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 1:24 PM, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote:

...

I thought that's all it was was a web interface... IIRC the preview was run in Chrome and Firefox, wasn't it?

It seems so. And there was one native console client :) (I thought that at least one of their clients is a native one, but, it seems to me now that there were no graphical clients at all.)

Anthony

7:55 p.m.

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 7:24 AM, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote:

...

I'm not sure if it'll catch on, because Google seems to have added so much extraneous crap into the mix

Milos Rancic

8:06 p.m.

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 1:55 PM, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote:

...

If I remember well, it was replying in the middle of a collaborative document. I suppose that there is an option "remove all comments" or so. Also, you may trace history of collaboration and comments (at more intuitive way than on MediaWiki page histories). BTW, I remember that I was very mad when I saw red lines below my text in Firefox. Usually, I am writing in Serbian and all of my texts have red lines below (and spell checkers for synthetic languages are not so useful yet; there are a lot of possible combinations which makes situation like "been/bean" very often). But, after some time I realized that it is a very useful tool. I am even feeding my browser's spell checkers now.

Anthony

8:33 p.m.

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 8:06 AM, Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 1:55 PM, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote:

Like replying in the middle of a message, not by quoting the original,

but

by just editing the person's message to add your question in the middle

it. How pissed would you be if someone did that on your User talk page? But yet it got applause. Don't people think? What was the constituency

the audience, anyway? They were applauding at some pretty horrible

ideas. If I remember well, it was replying in the middle of a collaborative document. I suppose that there is an option "remove all comments" or so. Also, you may trace history of collaboration and comments (at more intuitive way than on MediaWiki page histories).

Maybe so. I'm sure there will be a way to turn it off. If not initially then after the hate mail starts coming in. And yeah, you can in theory trace the history. But I don't want to do all that work. Again, after thinking about it further I guess it has its possible uses. But they were pitching it as a replacement for email, not as a replacement for wikis or a new method of communications altogether. On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 8:13 AM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:

...

When you paid attention, you would know that it were developers.

Well, yes, clearly, but that only partially explains the lack of grasp on the real world. Seriously, I remember watching some other parts and thinking about how it was surely written by some geek with no concept of a world outside of cyberspace. But the audience seemed to be even in love with Google, almost in a cult-like way, compared to the average developer. I mean, sure, it was a self-selected sample, of people interested in Google, but even that doesn't explain the response. I'm quite interested in Google, and as a shareholder I am quite biased toward them. But I wouldn't have dreamed of applauding at some of the crap they revealed.

Gerard Meijssen

8:13 p.m.

Hoi, When you paid attention, you would know that it were developers. You are thinking along the lines of traditional e-mail and YES, you want to know who did what. You do know that it was explained that they deal with this. When you forget about the e-mail paradigm and start thinking in terms of the Wiki paradigm, you may come to the conclusion that they do a great job of integrating the things that make sense to us. It has been said often enough that Wikis are to preferred over e-mail. What I see in Wave is how many of the attributes come to the e-mail and in a way that is way more poweful because here you can actually send/receive it as e-mail as well as collaboratively edit. One of the better parts in the presentation was where they explained that even though they are building and living this new envirionment, they have to appreciate the power of new approaches. All in all, the ability to change a text is what makes it a wiki, the fact that it was received by mail makes it mail, the combination makes it more powerful and something else. Thanks, GerardM 2009/5/30 Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org>

...

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 7:24 AM, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote:

I'm not sure if it'll catch on, because Google seems to have added so

much

extraneous crap into the mix

Like replying in the middle of a message, not by quoting the original, but by just editing the person's message to add your question in the middle of it. How pissed would you be if someone did that on your User talk page? But yet it got applause. Don't people think? What was the constituency of the audience, anyway? They were applauding at some pretty horrible ideas. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Thomas Dalton

8:26 p.m.

2009/5/30 Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org>rg>:

...

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 7:24 AM, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote:

I'm not sure if it'll catch on, because Google seems to have added so much extraneous crap into the mix

That part didn't bother me too much. I hated the way it didn't seem to indicate what message you were replying to. For the most part, the conversation had a linear structure, not a tree one. They would reply to the last message in the conversation and the reply would have the same indentation as all the rest of the messages. To me, that makes it look like a reply to the original message that started the wave.

Anthony

9:06 p.m.

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 8:26 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:

...

I hated the way it didn't seem to indicate what message you were replying to. For the most part, the conversation had a linear structure, not a tree one. They would reply to the last message in the conversation and the reply would have the same indentation as all the rest of the messages. To me, that makes it look like a reply to the original message that started the wave.

Heh, that's actually one of the memes in Wikipedia (etc.) talk pages that I never liked. Too geeky. Maybe they could do something with color coding... I dunno, I've found Wikipedia Review standard mode to be the best. If you're changing the topic, start a new thread. If it's really important that you're replying to something, quote it. I guess it goes back to the "discussion vs. collaboration" argument. If the purpose is discussion for the sake of the active participants, tree structures are extraneous. If the purpose is creating a collaborative document for third parties to view later, I think you've gotta go to "Document Mode". There's probably a lot of improvement that can be made to each, but I seriously doubt that Google is going about it correctly. I like the concept of DoubleWiki ( http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?DoubleWiki), but that never really caught on. The ability to use colors will surely be helpful.

Thomas Dalton

9:14 p.m.

2009/5/30 Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org>rg>:

...

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 8:26 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:

Heh, that's actually one of the memes in Wikipedia (etc.) talk pages that I never liked. Too geeky.

It doesn't have to be indentation, but there should be some clear way of denoting what something is in reply to. Indentation is the most common method I've seen, it is not restricted to Wikipedia (or even wikis in general) by any means. I can't think of a way that would be better than indentation, but that may just be because I've become so immersed in that style of communication. You mention doing it using colours - I can see a really cool way of doing it by having a reply be the same colour as the message being replied to but slightly darker and with a slight tint to it, different replies would have different tints. You would then end up with a beautiful rainbow of messages. As cool as that would be, I still think indentation is better!

Anthony

9:33 p.m.

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 9:14 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:

...

2009/5/30 Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org>rg>:

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 8:26 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com wrote:

Heh, that's actually one of the memes in Wikipedia (etc.) talk pages that

never liked. Too geeky.

No, it isn't. But it does seem to be restricted to geeks and geek websites (the one outside of Wikipedia that immediately comes to mind is Slashdot). Even the idea that each message is "in reply to" exactly one previous message doesn't seem to fit with real world conversations. Real people don't think that way or converse that way. A: "What's your favorite color?" B: "I like red" C: "I like green" D: "Red and green? Are you nuts? Blue is the best color of all?" A: I agree with B, red is definitely the nicest color. C: But isn't the wavelength of green so much more asthetically pleasing? How do you form a tree out of that?

Thomas Dalton

10:59 p.m.

2009/5/30 Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org>rg>:

...

A: "What's your favorite color?" B: "I like red" C: "I like green" D: "Red and green? Are you nuts? Blue is the best color of all?" A: I agree with B, red is definitely the nicest color. C: But isn't the wavelength of green so much more asthetically pleasing? How do you form a tree out of that?

The 2nd and 3rd lines are each replies to the 1st. The 4th is a reply to both the 2nd and 3rd, so breaks the tree somewhat (no system is perfect) - you have to choose between simplicity and completeness, you could implement it as a full graph, rather than just a tree, but at the expensive of an intuitive and elegant UI. The 5th line is a reply to the 2nd, and the 6th is difficult to work out without knowing the non-verbal communication that was going along at the same time, it could be a question aimed at a specific person, or it could be a question to the floor (which doesn't fit into the tree structure) - the lack of non-verbal cues is why things need to be made explicit online. Conversations that take place in real time (particularly face-to-face, to a lesser extent on things like IRC) don't tend to follow a tree structure as closely as conversations with a wait before responses. In a face-to-face conversation, you can't have two people saying something at the same time, or someone saying something before they are up-to-date with the whole conversation. Those things happen all the time with email conversations, or conversations on web forums, which is why seeing the conversation as a tree, rather than a linear progression (which it simply isn't), is helpful.

Gerard Meijssen

8:03 p.m.

Hoi, There was also Safari ... the message was "modern" browsers.. but this is for the reference implementation Google will build. It was also demonstrated that you can go as low as a command line tool for this.. Thanks, GerardM 2009/5/30 Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org>

...

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 6:49 AM, Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 7:13 AM, Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

Yeah, sure. Like the way Jabber killed proprietary protocols like MSN and AIM, right? It's been 9 years since the first release now.

If AOL had built XMPP into AIM in 1997, the story would have played out much differently.

The proprietary IM networks will steal the best ideas from Wave and

add their own bit of marketing spin, which somehow, to the hoards of faithful users, will seem even cooler than what Google Wave can do. That's assuming they even perceive a threat.

Yes, this is potential problem.

Browsers are something Microsoft actually supports and packages with

their OS, unlike federated, open-protocol IM clients, which as we've seen over the past 9 years, they are not interested in. They've even discontinued their IRC client.

There will be web interface, too.

I thought that's all it was was a web interface... IIRC the preview was run in Chrome and Firefox, wasn't it? _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Milos Rancic

8:10 p.m.

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 2:03 PM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

There was also Safari ... the message was "modern" browsers.. but this is for the reference implementation Google will build. It was also demonstrated that you can go as low as a command line tool for this..

Actually, not a command line tool, but a terminal (curses) tool. But, I may imagine a tool similar to wget (or even wget's evolution). BTW, old programmers and admins are treating move from line editors to terminal editors as much bigger advance than move from terminal systems to windowing systems.

Tim Starling

31 May 31 May

2:06 a.m.

Milos Rancic wrote:

...

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 7:13 AM, Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

This is why that (very long) presentation is important. They clearly said that they want to make their implementation as the referent open source implementation.

Thomas Dalton

2:14 a.m.

2009/5/30 Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org>rg>:

...

Milos Rancic wrote:

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 7:13 AM, Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:

This is why that (very long) presentation is important. They clearly said that they want to make their implementation as the referent open source implementation.

Funny, that's exactly what the blog post said, which I just quoted. I guess I was right not to waste an hour of my Saturday watching that presentation.

I watched it in the end - it really is a very impressive bit of software. I don't see much that is new in it, but it brings things together really neatly. I can see myself using it once it comes out.

...

Wanting it to be free software does not make it free software. The code has to actually be published with a permissive license. Until then, it is proprietary software.

Gerard Meijssen

2:34 a.m.

Hoi, One of the things that I really appreciate is the decision by Google to create a reference implementation and the way they expect contributions to the protocol to be accompanied by working code implemented as a patch for the reference implementation. The reference implementation will as a product be ready to implement. For Wave to be a success it has to be open and interoperable. In my opinion Google does everything it can to ensure that everyone can ride the wave and benefit of the shared software.. When extension can not be shared, their restricted use will make it fail because the functionality is not available for the person who might be on a different server. Thanks, GerardM 2009/5/30 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>

...

2009/5/30 Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org>rg>:

Milos Rancic wrote: > On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 7:13 AM, Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org>

wrote:

This is why that (very long) presentation is important. They clearly said that they want to make their implementation as the referent open source implementation.

Funny, that's exactly what the blog post said, which I just quoted. I guess I was right not to waste an hour of my Saturday watching that presentation.

I watched it in the end - it really is a very impressive bit of software. I don't see much that is new in it, but it brings things together really neatly. I can see myself using it once it comes out.

Wanting it to be free software does not make it free software. The code has to actually be published with a permissive license. Until then, it is proprietary software.

It's not the software that's important. It's the protocol and the API. While it would be great if their client was made open and free, that isn't necessary for it to be a success, as long as the protocol and API are truly free. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Gerard Meijssen

2:15 a.m.

Hoi, The license has been published here... http://www.waveprotocol.org/patent-license Thanks, GerardM 2009/5/30 Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org>

...

Milos Rancic wrote:

On Sat, May 30, 2009 at 7:13 AM, Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org>

wrote:

This is why that (very long) presentation is important. They clearly said that they want to make their implementation as the referent open source implementation.

Funny, that's exactly what the blog post said, which I just quoted. I guess I was right not to waste an hour of my Saturday watching that presentation. Wanting it to be free software does not make it free software. The code has to actually be published with a permissive license. Until then, it is proprietary software. -- Tim Starling _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

Michael Peel

4:29 a.m.

Having just watched the talk/show/discussion/dancing, I agree completely with Steve's comments on wikien-l: On 29 May 2009, at 04:52, Steve Bennett wrote:

...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_UyVmITiYQ&eurl=http%3A%2F% 2Fwave.google.com%2F&feature=player_embedded (See from about 31:00 onwards for the relevant bit...) Real-time collaborative editing. Scroll back and forth through history, showing changes by a single user or of a single paragraph. Embedded comments updated in real time. Edit from multiple clients. Could we please have all of this? This is several orders of magnitude better than MediaWiki's collaborative editing features. Steve _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

I'm not so sure about the rest of the wave idea (I dislike being trapped within a browser rather than using the whole of a computer's interface, and I'm vary wary about the apparent lack of interaction with existing systems and the whole client-server interaction), I thought that the interface was amazing. I would love to see a Wikipedia article develop along the lines of the play back option; it would be great to be able to instantly edit Wikipedia, and see other people's edits in real time (although real- time vandalism could be interesting...). Being able to drag-and-drop images into an article/onto Commons from a desktop, or from elsewhere on the web, would be a real timesaver. Could this be considered by the Usability team, or is this way beyond their scope? Could we ask Google nicely to come up with a brand new interface for mediawiki? ;-) Mike On 29 May 2009, at 20:10, Milos Rancic wrote:

...

Probably, some of you already saw that Google made something for which I think that it will be the new form of the mainstream Internet perception. You may read Slashdot article [1], a good description at the blog "Google Operating System" [2] (not officially connected with Google) and, of course, you may see the official site with more than one hour of presentation [3]. I expected such kind of tool (a client connected with others via P2P XML-based protocol; with servers for identification). However, I didn't expect that i will come so soon, that it will be done by one large corporation and that it will be done at the right way: open protocol, free software referent implementation. At the official site they said that it will start to work during this year. As one large corporation is behind the project, as well as free and open source community is able to participate, I have no doubts that it will be implemented all over the Internet (and not just Internet) very quickly. Probably, in two years the basic component of one modern operating system will not be a Web browser, but a Wave client. Probably, Web will become a storage system, while all of the interaction will be done via Waves. This development of Internet is very strongly related to the Wikimedia projects: * I want to be able to edit Wikipedia through the Wave client. * I want to add my own notes to articles, history of articles etc. * I want to have collection of my knowledge at one place, including Wikipedia articles and my notes. * I want to be able to make a program which would analyze articles on Wikipedia and to give program and/or analysis to my friends. * I want many more things to be browsable or editable or whatever from a Wave client... All of those my (but, in one year, not just my) wishes may be fulfilled just through work on MediaWiki and Pywikipediabot. So, I am calling all of you who are willing to think about it or who are at the position to think about it -- to start with thinking :) [1] - http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/05/28/1912226/Googles-Wave- Blurs-Chat-Email-Collaboration-Software [2] - http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/05/google-wave.html [3] - http://wave.google.com/ _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l

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participants (18)

Anthony
Brian
Chad
David Gerard
Domas Mituzas
Erik Moeller
Gerard Meijssen
Judson Dunn
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
Lars Aronsson
Michael Peel
Milos Rancic
Peter Coombe
Ray Saintonge
Robert Rohde
Steven Walling
Thomas Dalton
Tim Starling