Last week I met with John Killy, the COO of the Mozilla Corporation, and with Brewster Kahle, ED of the Internet Archive. Mozilla intends to support video playback in Firefox using the new <video> tag [1], but such support is not likely to arrive before late 2008 according to John.
The Internet Archive currently does not transcode to Ogg Theora, but has a transcoding pipeline in place for other codecs. They have recently started embedding the Flash-based open source "Flow Player" for playing back FLV files directly in the browser, and have added FLV to their transcoding pipeline.
The Archive is happy to support us with video hosting in any way. If we can find a useful hosting arrangement with them, they would also be willing to add Ogg Theora to their transcoding pipeline.
Imagine that we could easily embed any currently hosted video from the Internet Archive into Wikimedia projects, but also make use of their immense hosting capacity for future video uploads beyond the current 20 MB upload size limit.
Video has tremendous potential educational use, and we should not let the Wikimedia projects fall behind when it comes to hosting video content. One should not underestimate the big role that ease of use played in the success of YouTube: thanks to embedded Flash video, users no longer had to worry about some plugin possibly hosing their Windows installation, or about Real Networks' eternal "Buffering ..." message showing up. It just worked [tm].
We must achieve the same ease of use in Wikimedia projects. In my opinion, inconveniencing users is the worst possible way to raise awareness of free content & free software. I therefore propose that 1) we immediately begin serious discussions with the Internet Archive about hosting some or all of our video content on their servers; 2) All uploaded videos should be transcoded to at least Ogg Theora & a Flash-compatible codec. 3) we add video support to MediaWiki that will, as intelligently as possible, fall back to any of the following methods - embedded open source Flash player - Java player - VLC plugin - (in the future) <video> support. 4) We support the open source Flash project Gnash to ensure that it can be used for video playback on Wikimedia servers.
Having an open source Flash implementation & an open source Flash player does not address the patent issues with Flash video, but those who are concerned about violating software patents (which are not universally applicable anyway) could still use the provided Theora files. We could also add a clear message to this effect at the bottom of every embedded Flash video.
Such a solution would be a reasonable compromise between trying to provide "free as in speech" video wherever possible, but also minimizing hassle and maximizing ease of use for typical Windows users looking for free educational content. We should continue to evangelize & use Ogg Theora, but not at the expense of usability.
[1] http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/section-video.ht...
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Erik Moeller wrote:
We must achieve the same ease of use in Wikimedia projects. In my opinion, inconveniencing users is the worst possible way to raise awareness of free content & free software. I therefore propose that
- we immediately begin serious discussions with the Internet Archive
about hosting some or all of our video content on their servers;
Hell no! Why should we farm out hosting to other sites? It just makes no sense. We don't have any storage or bandwidth issues on our end, so why give up control and our strong protection of free content? Archive.org does NOT have the same copyleft stance that we do, not by a long shot.
- All uploaded videos should be transcoded to at least Ogg Theora & a
Flash-compatible codec.
Absolutely unacceptable. We cannot use non-free file formats. We will continue to use Ogg Theora and we will NOT use Flash.
- we add video support to MediaWiki that will, as intelligently as
possible, fall back to any of the following methods
- embedded open source Flash player
- Java player
- VLC plugin
- (in the future) <video> support.
Where have you been? We already have fallback methods in place for displaying videos on WMF servers that work for the majority of readers. If we put a bit more effort into improving this system we will have a very robust way of displaying videos to readers that does not violate our core mission.
On 7/20/07, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
If we put a bit more effort into improving this system we will have a very robust way of displaying videos to readers that does not violate our core mission.
As one of the people who wrote our mission statement, I can confirm that it doesn't say ".. to push patent-unencumbered formats even at the cost of user experience." Indeed, it doesn't mention free formats at all, though I consider that an oversight.
What it does say is that it is our mission to "to disseminate [educational content] _effectively_ and globally" (emphasis mine). I don't believe that the current practice is in line with the goal of _effective_ dissemination of educational content, and that we can promote patent-unencumbered codecs while significantly increasing effectiveness by supporting a Flash player and FLV video as _one_ of multiple video playback methods. I am willing to put this to both a community & a Board-level vote. But first we should collect data on how many people currently have trouble playing video "out of the box".
On 7/20/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
What it does say is that it is our mission to "to disseminate [educational content] _effectively_ and globally" (emphasis mine).
Don't abbreviate it to "educational content" like that. It's "educational content under a free license or in the public domain". If you're going to quote the mission statement to support your argument, quote it accurately.
On 7/20/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
I think we should simply ask the current patent holders whether they would grant us non-commercial rights to use the relevant codecs. Yes, such rights won't trickle down to third parties, but we would offer the Theora files and promote Theora for this reason. The right could be time-limited, and renegotiated regularly.
Why should the Foundation expend its efforts and its goodwill to achieve this when we could devote those same efforts and goodwill to achieving greater support for free formats?
If we're spending time talking to all of these organisations about working with us, should we not even consider talking to Adobe about facilitating free format support in Flash?
On 7/20/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
I'm 100% in support of "pushing unencumbered formats", but not at the expense of usability for the majority of users.
Then I really have to ask, what are you doing on the board of one of the largest free content organisations around? Your goal should be to do everything possible to make free content usable for the majority of users.
On 7/20/07, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
I'm 100% in support of "pushing unencumbered formats", but not at the expense of usability for the majority of users.
Then I really have to ask, what are you doing on the board of one of the largest free content organisations around? Your goal should be to do everything possible to make free content usable for the majority of users.
That's exactly the point.
On 7/20/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 7/20/07, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
I'm 100% in support of "pushing unencumbered formats", but not at the expense of usability for the majority of users.
Then I really have to ask, what are you doing on the board of one of the largest free content organisations around? Your goal should be to do everything possible to make free content usable for the majority of users.
That's exactly the point.
I'm presuming you have replied like this because you are still distinguishing content from file format.
But does one really have the freedom to use a work, to make and redistribute copies, to make changes and improvements, and to distribute derivative works, if that work is delivered in a proprietary file format?
No, free licences do not go as far as requiring distribution of content licensed under them in free formats. But the GFDL requires transparent copies to be available when opaque copies are distributed for a reason: to ensure that consumers of free content really do have those freedoms.
If we are looking at adding extra video functionality, in order to increase the usability of libre video, it ought to be by way of making free file formats more usable.
Stephen Bain wrote:
On 7/20/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
On 7/20/07, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
I'm 100% in support of "pushing unencumbered formats", but not at the expense of usability for the majority of users.
Then I really have to ask, what are you doing on the board of one of the largest free content organisations around? Your goal should be to do everything possible to make free content usable for the majority of users.
That's exactly the point.
I'm presuming you have replied like this because you are still distinguishing content from file format.
But does one really have the freedom to use a work, to make and redistribute copies, to make changes and improvements, and to distribute derivative works, if that work is delivered in a proprietary file format?
No, free licences do not go as far as requiring distribution of content licensed under them in free formats. But the GFDL requires transparent copies to be available when opaque copies are distributed for a reason: to ensure that consumers of free content really do have those freedoms.
If we are looking at adding extra video functionality, in order to increase the usability of libre video, it ought to be by way of making free file formats more usable.
I don't understand this argument at all.
Nobody is suggesting delivering content exclusively in a patent-encumbered format. The proposal is to deliver content in either Ogg Theora or FLV as the client requires. Converting a video into a non-free format does not make the video non-free. The transparent copy will still be available -- the Ogg Theora source file.
We support Internet Explorer for browsing our website -- we have IE70Fixes.css, for instance. Are you saying that to be truly free, we should delete this file and deny access for anyone using Internet Explorer?
Or to make another analogy, why didn't anyone complain about non-free software when we made the text of Wikipedia available for download in TomeRaider format? Was that a mistake? Now that I have drawn attention to it, should we delete it from our servers and then burn the hard drives that held it in a purification ritual?
We are supporting free software by fully supporting a complete free software stack in the client, and by using free software in the server. It would not help our mission to support free software in this third way -- by boycotting non-free client systems.
-- Tim Starling
On 7/20/07, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
<snip>
We support Internet Explorer for browsing our website -- we have IE70Fixes.css, for instance. Are you saying that to be truly free, we should delete this file and deny access for anyone using Internet Explorer?
That might not be such a bad idea... :-)
<snip>
-- Tim Starling
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 7/20/07, Gabe Johnson gjzilla@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/20/07, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
<snip>
We support Internet Explorer for browsing our website -- we have IE70Fixes.css, for instance. Are you saying that to be truly free, we should delete this file and deny access for anyone using Internet Explorer?
That might not be such a bad idea... :-)
A while ago, I suggested using http://explorerdestroyer.com/ to convert users and generate money. The suggestion was turned down and now I think it was not the brightest idea ever.
Mathias
On 7/20/07, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Nobody is suggesting delivering content exclusively in a patent-encumbered format. The proposal is to deliver content in either Ogg Theora or FLV as the client requires. Converting a video into a non-free format does not make the video non-free. The transparent copy will still be available -- the Ogg Theora source file.
We support Internet Explorer for browsing our website -- we have IE70Fixes.css, for instance. Are you saying that to be truly free, we should delete this file and deny access for anyone using Internet Explorer?
This is a bad analogy.
The site is equally accessible from pretty much any browser -- free, non-free, requiring the blood of your first-born child to operate, whatever -- and though certain things may be a bit wonky across different ones, the idea is that no matter how you choose to access the site it doesn't matter and we're not imposing one solution on you, though we may fix things that don't look right in your non-free browser, too.
A proprietary file format requires that you have a player that plays by their rules; you can use a player that is suitably blessed and only one of those, or risk legal and financial consequences.
But say you will distribute in both the Flash and ogg theora video formats. (Ignoring that in other cases where people say they will do this, they are notoriously bad about providing an up-to-date, comparable-quality version in the free format, let's assume we do this right.)
So, great, you can edit the theora version with only free tools, but then you can't update the Flash version; you're dependent on someone willing to play by their rules to do so.
And you're not encouraging anyone to adopt the free solution, no matter how easy it is to do. (Playing the theora videos is dead easy now, even on Windows.) You're not encouraging other people to make the free solution any easier, because users have no incentive to use it if they can simply use what they already have (even if Flash, too, required jumping through some installation hoops at some point). You're just continuing to encourage people not to adopt the free solution if they haven't already.
Or to make another analogy, why didn't anyone complain about non-free software when we made the text of Wikipedia available for download in TomeRaider format? Was that a mistake? Now that I have drawn attention to it, should we delete it from our servers and then burn the hard drives that held it in a purification ritual?
We are supporting free software by fully supporting a complete free software stack in the client, and by using free software in the server. It would not help our mission to support free software in this third way -- by boycotting non-free client systems.
I disagree with you. We want to present free content that is freely reusable. You cannot freely reuse something you cannot edit with free tools.
As for TomeRaider -- I don't remember hearing we were doing that, so, a question: is it possible to make a non patent-encumbered free software tool to read and edit works in the TomeRaider format? If so, fine; that it can be read by proprietary software also, and even preferred by users of proprietary software, isn't a problem. But if not and a free tool for it is impossible, that is a problem, and we should not use our resources to support it.
-Kat
Kat Walsh wrote:
But say you will distribute in both the Flash and ogg theora video formats. (Ignoring that in other cases where people say they will do this, they are notoriously bad about providing an up-to-date, comparable-quality version in the free format, let's assume we do this right.)
So, great, you can edit the theora version with only free tools, but then you can't update the Flash version; you're dependent on someone willing to play by their rules to do so.
There would be automatic transcoding. We have a summer student working on this. The file format would not be obvious to a casual reader, it would just work. The format as seen by the editor would be a free format.
And you're not encouraging anyone to adopt the free solution, no matter how easy it is to do. (Playing the theora videos is dead easy now, even on Windows.) You're not encouraging other people to make the free solution any easier, because users have no incentive to use it if they can simply use what they already have (even if Flash, too, required jumping through some installation hoops at some point). You're just continuing to encourage people not to adopt the free solution if they haven't already.
Right, so you want to encourage people to use free video players by making the non-free players not work. I think I addressed that point of view in my original post.
Or to make another analogy, why didn't anyone complain about non-free software when we made the text of Wikipedia available for download in TomeRaider format? Was that a mistake? Now that I have drawn attention to it, should we delete it from our servers and then burn the hard drives that held it in a purification ritual?
We are supporting free software by fully supporting a complete free software stack in the client, and by using free software in the server. It would not help our mission to support free software in this third way -- by boycotting non-free client systems.
I disagree with you. We want to present free content that is freely reusable. You cannot freely reuse something you cannot edit with free tools.
I too want to have content that you can freely reuse, and that can be edited with free tools. But I want to support popular non-free client systems as well, to improve access for readers.
-- Tim Starling
On 7/21/07, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote: [snip]
I too want to have content that you can freely reuse, and that can be edited with free tools. But I want to support popular non-free client systems as well, to improve access for readers.
Just to correct a piece of misunderstanding some may have after reading the above:
The free formats we use are not copylefted. They are not fundamentally incompatible with non-free software.
The reference implementations are BSDish licensed. They are available for use in closed software, and are widely used in closed source software.
Microsoft ships Ogg support embedded in many games for their internal audio.
Opera is closed software, and the upcoming version will have Ogg/Theora support. Ogg/Theora for video support is now part of the standing WHATWG HTML5 standard specification.
All in browser web video playback today requires some sort of software install on typical non-free desktop systems. For some sites it is flash, others Java, and others require other types of plugins or players. Flash penetration is somewhat higher than Java, the magnitude of which depends on the type of audience you service. (All three of the financial services sites I use require Java for something, as does some VPN software I use... So while Java is in decline for webtoys it still dominates web tools for professionals)
The player we have today works for a significant majority of the people who try it.
You certainly can't argue that the use of Ogg/Theora excludes non-free software.
Two years ago you could have argued that the use of only free formats was significantly hurting access by readers. Today that argument is much harder to support. Within a year as nave support goes into released versions FireFox and Opera that argument will be far harder still.
Wikimedia's exclusive support of unencumbered formats has had a material impact in their general viability. To concede on this after so much progress, when the benefits of doing so are the least they have ever been would be foolish.
On 7/21/07, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
Wikimedia's exclusive support of unencumbered formats has had a material impact in their general viability. To concede on this after so much progress, when the benefits of doing so are the least they have ever been would be foolish.
Indeed. While not mentioned in our mission statement ( a fact that even Erik curiously confesses is an oversight ), this is nevertheless a longstanding policy, which has been discussed on this list extensively by Jimbo among others.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
It is of absolute importance for major projects to push for free formats, and to avoid hosting encumbered formats -- even while supporting compatibility to improve access and usability. This is one of the more effective ways to change the format universe.
We can do more than be firm about a commitment to open formats, we can make some noise about it. The Xiph Foundation is still around, though its members are rather busy; some sort of regular announcement -- for instance, as part of the announcements of where the free format communities and projects are heading in the next year -- would be welcome by everyone.
A good place to start, regardless of larger partnership, would be helping the Archive identify and implement a fast transcoder. They would do that in a heartbeat.
SJ, looking at some ogg-encoded language learning materials
On Sat, 21 Jul 2007, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
On 7/21/07, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote: [snip]
I too want to have content that you can freely reuse, and that can be edited with free tools. But I want to support popular non-free client systems as well, to improve access for readers.
Just to correct a piece of misunderstanding some may have after reading the above:
The free formats we use are not copylefted. They are not fundamentally incompatible with non-free software.
The reference implementations are BSDish licensed. They are available for use in closed software, and are widely used in closed source software.
Microsoft ships Ogg support embedded in many games for their internal audio.
Opera is closed software, and the upcoming version will have Ogg/Theora support. Ogg/Theora for video support is now part of the standing WHATWG HTML5 standard specification.
All in browser web video playback today requires some sort of software install on typical non-free desktop systems. For some sites it is flash, others Java, and others require other types of plugins or players. Flash penetration is somewhat higher than Java, the magnitude of which depends on the type of audience you service. (All three of the financial services sites I use require Java for something, as does some VPN software I use... So while Java is in decline for webtoys it still dominates web tools for professionals)
The player we have today works for a significant majority of the people who try it.
You certainly can't argue that the use of Ogg/Theora excludes non-free software.
Two years ago you could have argued that the use of only free formats was significantly hurting access by readers. Today that argument is much harder to support. Within a year as nave support goes into released versions FireFox and Opera that argument will be far harder still.
Wikimedia's exclusive support of unencumbered formats has had a material impact in their general viability. To concede on this after so much progress, when the benefits of doing so are the least they have ever been would be foolish.
On 7/21/07, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Nobody is suggesting delivering content exclusively in a patent-encumbered format. The proposal is to deliver content in either Ogg Theora or FLV as the client requires. Converting a video into a non-free format does not make the video non-free. The transparent copy will still be available -- the Ogg Theora source file.
No, Erik is not suggesting using non-free formats exclusively, just structuring all new content delivery capabilities around non-free formats.
Or to make another analogy, why didn't anyone complain about non-free software when we made the text of Wikipedia available for download in TomeRaider format? Was that a mistake? Now that I have drawn attention to it, should we delete it from our servers and then burn the hard drives that held it in a purification ritual?
An analogy that is closer to what I was trying to say would be putting the whole of the next hardware purchase into serving a Word Document version of Wikipedia.
My point is that if we are considering adding capabilities for delivering video, we should be adding to our free format capability. Formats like FLV could be an option in parallel, but they should not be our first option.
On 7/21/07, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
I don't understand this argument at all.
Nobody is suggesting delivering content exclusively in a patent-encumbered format. The proposal is to deliver content in either Ogg Theora or FLV as the client requires. Converting a video into a non-free format does not make the video non-free. The transparent copy will still be available -- the Ogg Theora source file.
We support Internet Explorer for browsing our website -- we have IE70Fixes.css, for instance. Are you saying that to be truly free, we should delete this file and deny access for anyone using Internet Explorer?
Or to make another analogy, why didn't anyone complain about non-free software when we made the text of Wikipedia available for download in TomeRaider format? Was that a mistake? Now that I have drawn attention to it, should we delete it from our servers and then burn the hard drives that held it in a purification ritual?
We are supporting free software by fully supporting a complete free software stack in the client, and by using free software in the server. It would not help our mission to support free software in this third way -- by boycotting non-free client systems.
-- Tim Starling
I'm reply to this message to agree with everything in it. Tim makes many of the exact points I was about to start penning, but more eloquently (including the IE example).
Allowing Proprietary Flash clients to display our Free OGG content is a Good Thing, even if we have to transcode to flv to get it there. Playback is not a zero sum game -- we can support different clients. Let's not get pretend this is the same as supporting FLV as a native file format -- it's not. It's only about playback.
Also, I'm shaky on details, but I believe gnash player supports having video streams as ogg theora? It would make a lot of sense to support Ogg "embedded" in Flash. However, the only reference I can find to ogg theora on the gnash website is within source code. Hmm..
Peter Halasz [[User:Pengo]]
On 7/21/07, Peter Halasz email@pengo.org wrote:
On 7/21/07, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
I don't understand this argument at all.
Nobody is suggesting delivering content exclusively in a patent-encumbered format. The proposal is to deliver content in either Ogg Theora or FLV as the client requires. Converting a video into a non-free format does not make the video non-free. The transparent copy will still be available -- the Ogg Theora source file.
We support Internet Explorer for browsing our website -- we have IE70Fixes.css, for instance. Are you saying that to be truly free, we should delete this file and deny access for anyone using Internet Explorer?
Or to make another analogy, why didn't anyone complain about non-free software when we made the text of Wikipedia available for download in TomeRaider format? Was that a mistake? Now that I have drawn attention to it, should we delete it from our servers and then burn the hard drives that held it in a purification ritual?
We are supporting free software by fully supporting a complete free software stack in the client, and by using free software in the server. It would not help our mission to support free software in this third way -- by boycotting non-free client systems.
-- Tim Starling
I'm reply to this message to agree with everything in it. Tim makes many of the exact points I was about to start penning, but more eloquently (including the IE example).
Allowing Proprietary Flash clients to display our Free OGG content is a Good Thing, even if we have to transcode to flv to get it there. Playback is not a zero sum game -- we can support different clients. Let's not get pretend this is the same as supporting FLV as a native file format -- it's not. It's only about playback.
Is this definitely legal? Can the WMF transcode OGG to flv without permission from anyone? If so, I really don't see the problem, per the reasons you give. But Kat mentioned this:
"So, great, you can edit the theora version with only free tools, but then you can't update the Flash version; you're dependent on someone willing to play by their rules to do so."
This implies that some sort of permission is needed to transcode OGG to flv (or maybe it has to be done outside the US).
I guess I could just look up the answer to this, but there are probably others on this list wondering similar things.
On 21/07/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Is this definitely legal? Can the WMF transcode OGG to flv without permission from anyone? If so, I really don't see the problem, per the reasons you give. But Kat mentioned this:
"So, great, you can edit the theora version with only free tools, but then you can't update the Flash version; you're dependent on someone willing to play by their rules to do so."
This implies that some sort of permission is needed to transcode OGG to flv (or maybe it has to be done outside the US).
My (albeit sketchy) understanding is that it assumes we get permission to do this sort of encoding, or we do it through IA who has this permission.
(As we've learned with with-permission images, getting permission to do something "for Wikipedia", etc, usually works better than one might anticipate!)
Anthony wrote:
On 7/21/07, Peter Halasz email@pengo.org wrote:
[...]
Allowing Proprietary Flash clients to display our Free OGG content is a Good Thing, even if we have to transcode to flv to get it there. Playback is not a zero sum game -- we can support different clients. Let's not get pretend this is the same as supporting FLV as a native file format -- it's not. It's only about playback.
Is this definitely legal? Can the WMF transcode OGG to flv without permission from anyone? If so, I really don't see the problem, per the reasons you give. But Kat mentioned this:
"So, great, you can edit the theora version with only free tools, but then you can't update the Flash version; you're dependent on someone willing to play by their rules to do so."
This implies that some sort of permission is needed to transcode OGG to flv (or maybe it has to be done outside the US).
I guess I could just look up the answer to this, but there are probably others on this list wondering similar things.
You don't need permission. At most you need a patent license, but MPEG LA don't charge for noncommercial use of open source encoders, and they don't charge for "free internet broadcast" either.
-- Tim Starling
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Tim Starling wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On 7/21/07, Peter Halasz email@pengo.org wrote:
[...]
Allowing Proprietary Flash clients to display our Free OGG content is a Good Thing, even if we have to transcode to flv to get it there. Playback is not a zero sum game -- we can support different clients. Let's not get pretend this is the same as supporting FLV as a native file format -- it's not. It's only about playback.
Is this definitely legal? Can the WMF transcode OGG to flv without permission from anyone? If so, I really don't see the problem, per the reasons you give. But Kat mentioned this:
"So, great, you can edit the theora version with only free tools, but then you can't update the Flash version; you're dependent on someone willing to play by their rules to do so."
This implies that some sort of permission is needed to transcode OGG to flv (or maybe it has to be done outside the US).
I guess I could just look up the answer to this, but there are probably others on this list wondering similar things.
You don't need permission. At most you need a patent license, but MPEG LA don't charge for noncommercial use of open source encoders, and they don't charge for "free internet broadcast" either.
Since when has non-commercial ever been good enough for Wikipedia? Non-commercial restrictions go fundamentally against the nature of free content. What good is it if we can do the transcoding because we're non-commercial, but most of our mirrors can't? Using proprietary formats puts all sorts of restrictions and limitations on how our content can be used by others, and that is unacceptable.
Ben McIlwain wrote:
Tim Starling wrote:
[...]
You don't need permission. At most you need a patent license, but MPEG LA don't charge for noncommercial use of open source encoders, and they don't charge for "free internet broadcast" either.
Since when has non-commercial ever been good enough for Wikipedia? Non-commercial restrictions go fundamentally against the nature of free content. What good is it if we can do the transcoding because we're non-commercial, but most of our mirrors can't? Using proprietary formats puts all sorts of restrictions and limitations on how our content can be used by others, and that is unacceptable.
It's not the content that has a non-commercial restriction, it's the encoder license. It's a different thing. Our mirrors can serve content in Ogg Theora format if that's what they want to do. It's not a restriction to add support for another client, it's the removal of a restriction.
-- Tim Starling
On 7/19/07, Stephen Bain stephen.bain@gmail.com wrote:
Don't abbreviate it to "educational content" like that. It's "educational content under a free license or in the public domain". If you're going to quote the mission statement to support your argument, quote it accurately.
I understand that some people have the attitude of Wikimedia being in the business of promoting free codecs and unencumbered file types. Our mission doesn't say that, it talks about content.
I think that we need to follow our mission first, and ensure that we provide educational content under a free license. That means unencumbered by patents or restrictions.
The mission doesn't say anything about exclusivity. It doesn't say "educational content ONLY under a free license". I see no reason for us not to accept MP3 files and transcode them, providing the OGG and the MP3 and whatever other formats strike our fancy. I see no reason for us to prohibit Flash, when the same video can also be available in Theora or whatever the free codec of the day is relatively popular. Why punish our users in the name of the exclusively-open?
Freedom of content means two things to me: 1) accessibility of content, and 2) liberty of content. We are trying to ensure 2) but keep coupling it with 1). I think that this is not completely necessary, and our users would find our content much more accessible if we provided some access in other, popular formats, whenever it's helpful to our readers.
-ilya haykinson
On 20/07/07, Ilya Haykinson haykinson@gmail.com wrote:
The mission doesn't say anything about exclusivity. It doesn't say "educational content ONLY under a free license". I see no reason for us not to accept MP3 files and transcode them, providing the OGG and the MP3 and whatever other formats strike our fancy. I see no reason for us to prohibit Flash, when the same video can also be available in Theora or whatever the free codec of the day is relatively popular. Why punish our users in the name of the exclusively-open?
Note by the way that we accepted animated GIFs where useful even while the GIF patents were current, because MNG (the animated version of PNG) was supported by almost no-one by default and was hence all but useless.
- d.
On Jul 19, 2007, at 11:40 PM, Stephen Bain wrote:
On 7/20/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
I'm 100% in support of "pushing unencumbered formats", but not at the expense of usability for the majority of users.
Then I really have to ask, what are you doing on the board of one of the largest free content organisations around? Your goal should be to do everything possible to make free content usable for the majority of users.
I just wanted to note that as a matter of reasoning, those two things need not be in conflict.
--Jimbo
Hoi, Where are your arguments ?
We do have storage and bandwidth problems. We have a money problem as in too little of it. When the Internet archive is willing to host our content, they in effect help alleviate our problem by hosting our content and providing bandwidth. Your argument about the copyleft stance of the Internet Archive is beside the point as well. When they provide us with storage and bandwidth, they do not take over from us as an organisation.. What are the positions of Kennisnet and Yahoo on this point, see.. you missed the ball.
When you say "absolutely unacceptable"... again no arguments... you sound like having seen the Lord. Sorry, I was not there with you when you had your moment of inspiration, was he a she, were angels singing ??
And again, core mission, it states that our content is to be Free. So read the core mission statement again, it does not state anywhere that the format needs to be Free.
To summarise, you state your convictions and you do not support them at all by arguments. I am sorry that you express yourself in this way and I hope you also have arguments to make your point.
Thanks, GerardM
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Mission_statement
On 7/20/07, Ben McIlwain <cydeweys@gmail.com > wrote:
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Erik Moeller wrote:
We must achieve the same ease of use in Wikimedia projects. In my opinion, inconveniencing users is the worst possible way to raise awareness of free content & free software. I therefore propose that
- we immediately begin serious discussions with the Internet Archive
about hosting some or all of our video content on their servers;
Hell no! Why should we farm out hosting to other sites? It just makes no sense. We don't have any storage or bandwidth issues on our end, so why give up control and our strong protection of free content? Archive.org does NOT have the same copyleft stance that we do, not by a long shot.
- All uploaded videos should be transcoded to at least Ogg Theora & a
Flash-compatible codec.
Absolutely unacceptable. We cannot use non-free file formats. We will continue to use Ogg Theora and we will NOT use Flash.
- we add video support to MediaWiki that will, as intelligently as
possible, fall back to any of the following methods
- embedded open source Flash player
- Java player
- VLC plugin
- (in the future) <video> support.
Where have you been? We already have fallback methods in place for displaying videos on WMF servers that work for the majority of readers. If we put a bit more effort into improving this system we will have a very robust way of displaying videos to readers that does not violate our core mission. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (MingW32)
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GerardM wrote:
Hoi, Where are your arguments ?
We do have storage and bandwidth problems. We have a money problem as in too little of it. When the Internet archive is willing to host our content, they in effect help alleviate our problem by hosting our content and providing bandwidth. Your argument about the copyleft stance of the Internet Archive is beside the point as well. When they provide us with storage and bandwidth, they do not take over from us as an organisation.. What are the positions of Kennisnet and Yahoo on this point, see.. you missed the ball.
Can you please detail what storage and bandwidth problems we have? Because I, managing WMF's network infrastructure, am not aware of them... :)
Hoi, The problems with our storage and bandwidth are financial not technical. Thanks, GerardM
On 7/20/07, Mark Bergsma mark@wikimedia.org wrote:
GerardM wrote:
Hoi, Where are your arguments ?
We do have storage and bandwidth problems. We have a money problem as in
too
little of it. When the Internet archive is willing to host our content,
they
in effect help alleviate our problem by hosting our content and
providing
bandwidth. Your argument about the copyleft stance of the Internet
Archive
is beside the point as well. When they provide us with storage and bandwidth, they do not take over from us as an organisation.. What are
the
positions of Kennisnet and Yahoo on this point, see.. you missed the
ball.
Can you please detail what storage and bandwidth problems we have? Because I, managing WMF's network infrastructure, am not aware of them... :)
-- Mark Bergsma mark@wikimedia.org System and Network Administrator, Wikimedia Foundation
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GerardM wrote:
Hoi, The problems with our storage and bandwidth are financial not technical.
That doesn't answer my question. I am also involved in the financial sides of those things, and I still don't know what you are talking about.
Hoi, Storage and bandwith is what the bulk of the financial resources of the WMF are spend on. For our latest funding drive there was a budget for 1,4 / 1,5 million dollars. We got slightly more than a million. When we find that the Internet Archive is willing to host a substantial part of our requirements it would make it possible to do more of the other things we budgeted for. Thanks, GerardM
On 7/20/07, Mark Bergsma mark@wikimedia.org wrote:
GerardM wrote:
Hoi, The problems with our storage and bandwidth are financial not technical.
That doesn't answer my question. I am also involved in the financial sides of those things, and I still don't know what you are talking about.
-- Mark Bergsma mark@wikimedia.org System and Network Administrator, Wikimedia Foundation
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On 7/20/07, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Storage and bandwith is what the bulk of the financial resources of the WMF are spend on.
Umm, "the bulk"? See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/What_we_need_the_money_for
Bandwidth is 17% of the non-capital budget, and that percentage is shrinking over time. Hardware costs are significant, but I know enough about computers to know that hard drives are only a small portion of hardware costs.
For our latest funding drive there was a budget for 1,4 / 1,5 million dollars.
The numbers provided in the budget didn't even add up, and the figures 1.4 / 1.5 million are nowhere to be found.
We got slightly more than a million. When we find that the Internet Archive is willing to host a substantial part of our requirements it would make it possible to do more of the other things we budgeted for.
I won't argue with that part of your statement.
Hoi, 17% of our non capital budget... well indeed... so why not consider the capital budget as well ?? I did not exclude it, why do you ? Thanks, GerardM
On 7/20/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 7/20/07, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Storage and bandwith is what the bulk of the financial resources of the
WMF
are spend on.
Umm, "the bulk"? See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/What_we_need_the_money_for
Bandwidth is 17% of the non-capital budget, and that percentage is shrinking over time. Hardware costs are significant, but I know enough about computers to know that hard drives are only a small portion of hardware costs.
For our latest funding drive there was a budget for 1,4 / 1,5 million dollars.
The numbers provided in the budget didn't even add up, and the figures 1.4 / 1.5 million are nowhere to be found.
We got slightly more than a million. When we find that the Internet Archive is willing to host a substantial part of our
requirements
it would make it possible to do more of the other things we budgeted
for.
I won't argue with that part of your statement.
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On 7/20/07, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, 17% of our non capital budget... well indeed... so why not consider the capital budget as well ?? I did not exclude it, why do you ?
Including the capital budget would only make the percentage even lower. I didn't include it because it isn't expressed in the same format (as a yearly figure).
On 7/20/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 7/20/07, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Storage and bandwith is what the bulk of the financial resources of the
WMF
are spend on.
Umm, "the bulk"? See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/What_we_need_the_money_for
Bandwidth is 17% of the non-capital budget, and that percentage is shrinking over time. Hardware costs are significant, but I know enough about computers to know that hard drives are only a small portion of hardware costs.
For our latest funding drive there was a budget for 1,4 / 1,5 million dollars.
The numbers provided in the budget didn't even add up, and the figures 1.4 / 1.5 million are nowhere to be found.
We got slightly more than a million. When we find that the Internet Archive is willing to host a substantial part of our
requirements
it would make it possible to do more of the other things we budgeted
for.
I won't argue with that part of your statement.
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Hoi, In the link it says: "Goals for Hardware (June 07 = $1,670,000 capital expenditure)" So the budget for non capital expenses is $75.000 * 12 = $900.000. The budget for hardware is $1.670.000,-. I fail to understand: "Including the capital budget would only make the percentage even lower." To me this is plain wrong.
My conclusion is that we spend more on capital expenses then on non-capital expenses. My original conclusion was and is that when a partner pays for our hosting, bandwidth and servers, it is a good thing. We should welcome more offers for all inclusive hosting.
There are many other things we should spend money on. For instance to make it possible to have a project for languages that requires a script that is not or not completely in Unicode. We could acquire fonts that will be Free so that we can provide fonts for those people that do not have a font for the languages that they find content for. With some regularity we can get content that needs major conversion to make it useful in our environment.
We should stop this unnecessary preoccupation with buying our own servers. It prevents us from considering the other opportunities that we have that help us realise our mission. Our mission is to provide information !!
Thanks, GerardM
On 7/21/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 7/20/07, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, 17% of our non capital budget... well indeed... so why not consider the capital budget as well ?? I did not exclude it, why do you ?
Including the capital budget would only make the percentage even lower. I didn't include it because it isn't expressed in the same format (as a yearly figure).
On 7/20/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 7/20/07, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Storage and bandwith is what the bulk of the financial resources of
the
WMF
are spend on.
Umm, "the bulk"? See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/What_we_need_the_money_for
Bandwidth is 17% of the non-capital budget, and that percentage is shrinking over time. Hardware costs are significant, but I know enough about computers to know that hard drives are only a small portion of hardware costs.
For our latest funding drive there was a budget for 1,4 / 1,5 million dollars.
The numbers provided in the budget didn't even add up, and the figures 1.4 / 1.5 million are nowhere to be found.
We got slightly more than a million. When we find that the Internet Archive is willing to host a substantial part of our
requirements
it would make it possible to do more of the other things we budgeted
for.
I won't argue with that part of your statement.
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On 7/23/07, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, In the link it says: "Goals for Hardware (June 07 = $1,670,000 capital expenditure)" So the budget for non capital expenses is $75.000 * 12 = $900.000. The budget for hardware is $1.670.000,-. I fail to understand: "Including the capital budget would only make the percentage even lower." To me this is plain wrong.
My conclusion is that we spend more on capital expenses then on non-capital expenses. My original conclusion was and is that when a partner pays for our hosting, bandwidth and servers, it is a good thing. We should welcome more offers for all inclusive hosting.
Having someone else pay for everything is great. Having someone else offer to host it themselves may or may not be great. But it is misleading or outright wrong to say that bandwidth and storage are "what the bulk of the financial resources of the WMF are spend on."
If you increase the denominator of a fraction, the percentage goes down.
Anthony
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Erik Moeller wrote:
Last week I met with John Killy, the COO of the Mozilla Corporation, and with Brewster Kahle, ED of the Internet Archive. Mozilla intends to support video playback in Firefox using the new <video> tag [1], but such support is not likely to arrive before late 2008 according to John.
Oh, and Erik, I do wish you'd stop going off to meet people in secret and reporting back only once you think you've made a deal (despite lacking ability to push it through yourself). You've done this before and it didn't meet with success. I believe we lost the opportunity for a good partnership with Google in this manner. Converse with your fellow Boardmembers and the community FIRST and *then* you can go and talk to the other people. Because I really, highly doubt that the Foundation is going to go for anything so radical and unnecessary as turning over all video hosting duties to an outside organization and using proprietary, non-free formats.
On 7/20/07, Ben McIlwain cydeweys@gmail.com wrote:
Oh, and Erik, I do wish you'd stop going off to meet people in secret and reporting back only once you think you've made a deal (despite lacking ability to push it through yourself). You've done this before and it didn't meet with success. I believe we lost the opportunity for a good partnership with Google in this manner.
Utter nonsense.
On Jul 19, 2007, at 10:33 PM, Ben McIlwain wrote:
Oh, and Erik, I do wish you'd stop going off to meet people in secret and reporting back only once you think you've made a deal (despite lacking ability to push it through yourself). You've done this before and it didn't meet with success. I believe we lost the opportunity for a good partnership with Google in this manner.
I just spent the weekend with Larry and Sergei and some other interesting people. I can tell you without hestitation that there is absolutely no "lost opportunity" for anything with Google.
In case any media or excitable bloggers are reading this, please do not write a story about talks with google, pending google deals, or anything of the sort. This was a purely social occasion, no business with google was discussed, I am just saying that Larry and Sergei are the same as since I have met them: they love our work, they stand ready to help if we need it, and stand ready to leave us alone otherwise. They are friends, just as we have many many many other friends in the world.
I am only posting this because I think it is really really unfair to Erik to put out this vibe about him. Erik is doing great things and I support him fully.
(I have no opinion in any details about Flash video, using Brewster for some hosting, etc., but AGF really really applies here.)
--Jimbo
On 7/20/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
Last week I met with John Killy, the COO of the Mozilla Corporation,
Erm, typo: The last name is Lilly, not Killy. :-)
On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 05:50:44 +0200, Erik Moeller wrote:
- We support the open source Flash project Gnash to ensure that it
can be used for video playback on Wikimedia servers.
I'd consider an working open source implementation a prerequisite. Adobe supports a limited selection of platforms.
Having an open source Flash implementation & an open source Flash player does not address the patent issues with Flash video, but those
Would that line of reasoning extend to MP3 audio (which AFAIK is currently banned for patent reasons)?
Roger
On 7/20/07, Roger Luethi collector@hellgate.ch wrote:
Having an open source Flash implementation & an open source Flash player does not address the patent issues with Flash video, but those
Would that line of reasoning extend to MP3 audio (which AFAIK is currently banned for patent reasons)?
I think we should base such a decision on hard numbers as much as possible. It's hard to define a "threshold of tolerance" for proprietary formats, but, making up a couple of numbers on the spot, if - two-thirds of users can play the file in question without installing additional software; - this number does not fall below 50% in any major world region (if we control for bandwidth & cost of access issues, as Gregory notes),
.. I would consider that to be acceptable. If this threshold cannot be reached, we should at least explore the option of increasing the number of users who can play back files by supporting proprietary formats _in addition to_ free ones (while strongly recommending the installation of free codecs, explaining the reasoning, etc.).
Such a test could then be applied to Vorbis, Theora, or any other file format.
On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 09:20:24 +0200, Erik Moeller wrote:
I think we should base such a decision on hard numbers as much as possible. It's hard to define a "threshold of tolerance" for proprietary formats, but, making up a couple of numbers on the spot, if
- two-thirds of users can play the file in question without installing
additional software;
Isn't that saying "it must be supported by the default Windows install", just in different words? Flash could make the list, but that might already be the end of it. I doubt even Java would make it.
I see the benefits of making content more accessible, but I'd prefer the foundation focusing on efforts to ease the installation of free codecs. If more users had free codecs installed, it would benefit us all.
Roger
Hoi, When we want to make more content available, providing better support for fonts would be at least of equal value. Many articles about languages resort to images to show text. For many languages fonts are not provided. For many scripts there is not even complete support in Unicode.
Given the aims of our Foundation, I would argue that fonts are more central to our ideals then supporting codecs.
Thanks, GerardM
On 7/20/07, Roger Luethi collector@hellgate.ch wrote:
On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 09:20:24 +0200, Erik Moeller wrote:
I think we should base such a decision on hard numbers as much as possible. It's hard to define a "threshold of tolerance" for proprietary formats, but, making up a couple of numbers on the spot, if
- two-thirds of users can play the file in question without installing
additional software;
Isn't that saying "it must be supported by the default Windows install", just in different words? Flash could make the list, but that might already be the end of it. I doubt even Java would make it.
I see the benefits of making content more accessible, but I'd prefer the foundation focusing on efforts to ease the installation of free codecs. If more users had free codecs installed, it would benefit us all.
Roger
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Hi,
At first thanks for your work, but please don't forget, that we produce free content embedded in (patent) free standards using free software.
The Internet Archive currently does not transcode to Ogg Theora, but has a transcoding pipeline in place for other codecs. They have recently started embedding the Flash-based open source "Flow Player" for playing back FLV files directly in the browser, and have added FLV to their transcoding pipeline.
And these other codecs are what? They are proprietary. Even if Gnash and friends are covering 100% of Flash you can't use 100% Flash cause of the proprietary file formats. I simply do not want us to degrade Ogg-Vorbis/Theora, just because other people aren't willing use Free Software.
It really goes on my nerves that I have to install for example mpeglib, libdvdcss and friends additionally by hand just because of stupid software patents and DCMA, while Ogg works out of the box.
Ogg is the only media format that allows for perfect usability out of the box.
The Archive is happy to support us with video hosting in any way. If we can find a useful hosting arrangement with them, they would also be willing to add Ogg Theora to their transcoding pipeline.
These are nice news but I simply don't want us to open the can of worms with mp3, mpgeg, wmf and whatnot.
This will exactly happen if you do that (Fair Use was already a big failure and the fact that you don't regard allowing Fair Use in en.wikipedia and en.wikinews as a big failure in principle, is probably the reason for thinking that flash video is acceptable).
So yes I think this would be very very much welcome if they provide content in Ogg-Vorbis/Theora. Either they are our proud free content and free technology provider or not.
Cheers, Arnomane
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Daniel Arnold wrote:
It really goes on my nerves that I have to install for example mpeglib, libdvdcss and friends additionally by hand just because of stupid software patents and DCMA, while Ogg works out of the box.
Ogg is the only media format that allows for perfect usability out of the box.
That's true if and only if you're running a recent Linux or other free *nix distribution. :)
For most other people, it's the proprietary formats that run out of the box. Thus there is some argument that providing multiple formats provides greater utility -- then more people get the out-of-the-box experience.
However that's dependent on the legal issues being sufficiently resolved that we feel comfortable producing and distributing content in those formats.
- -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)
Preparing us to be able to offer a friendly and open way to handle videos late 2008 seems to me a better idea.
That means at least: * Improving Mediawiki in this direction * Having a media-center to make video manipulations : convertion, thumbs, ... * resolving bandwidth problem
Your proposition: * add dependences * does not use free tech. (Internet Archive) * is only for one-two years * postpones our real challenge
Kelson
2007/7/20, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org:
Last week I met with John Killy, the COO of the Mozilla Corporation, and with Brewster Kahle, ED of the Internet Archive. Mozilla intends to support video playback in Firefox using the new <video> tag [1], but such support is not likely to arrive before late 2008 according to John.
The Internet Archive currently does not transcode to Ogg Theora, but has a transcoding pipeline in place for other codecs. They have recently started embedding the Flash-based open source "Flow Player" for playing back FLV files directly in the browser, and have added FLV to their transcoding pipeline.
The Archive is happy to support us with video hosting in any way. If we can find a useful hosting arrangement with them, they would also be willing to add Ogg Theora to their transcoding pipeline.
Imagine that we could easily embed any currently hosted video from the Internet Archive into Wikimedia projects, but also make use of their immense hosting capacity for future video uploads beyond the current 20 MB upload size limit.
Video has tremendous potential educational use, and we should not let the Wikimedia projects fall behind when it comes to hosting video content. One should not underestimate the big role that ease of use played in the success of YouTube: thanks to embedded Flash video, users no longer had to worry about some plugin possibly hosing their Windows installation, or about Real Networks' eternal "Buffering ..." message showing up. It just worked [tm].
We must achieve the same ease of use in Wikimedia projects. In my opinion, inconveniencing users is the worst possible way to raise awareness of free content & free software. I therefore propose that
- we immediately begin serious discussions with the Internet Archive
about hosting some or all of our video content on their servers; 2) All uploaded videos should be transcoded to at least Ogg Theora & a Flash-compatible codec. 3) we add video support to MediaWiki that will, as intelligently as possible, fall back to any of the following methods
- embedded open source Flash player
- Java player
- VLC plugin
- (in the future) <video> support.
- We support the open source Flash project Gnash to ensure that it
can be used for video playback on Wikimedia servers.
Having an open source Flash implementation & an open source Flash player does not address the patent issues with Flash video, but those who are concerned about violating software patents (which are not universally applicable anyway) could still use the provided Theora files. We could also add a clear message to this effect at the bottom of every embedded Flash video.
Such a solution would be a reasonable compromise between trying to provide "free as in speech" video wherever possible, but also minimizing hassle and maximizing ease of use for typical Windows users looking for free educational content. We should continue to evangelize & use Ogg Theora, but not at the expense of usability.
[1] http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/section-video.ht...
-- Toward Peace, Love & Progress: Erik
DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
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Erik Moeller wrote:
- We support the open source Flash project Gnash to ensure that it
can be used for video playback on Wikimedia servers.
Having an open source Flash implementation & an open source Flash player does not address the patent issues with Flash video, but those who are concerned about violating software patents (which are not universally applicable anyway)
[snip]
Last I checked, WMF is based in the United States, where they do apply. ;)
Really it's a matter of legal issues -- if WMF can confirm that it's not going to be a problem to encode files to FLV as well as to Theora, then there's no practical impediment to providing both formats.
It then comes down to the ideological question of whether we want to provide it as well, and frankly I have no interest in arguing such a question at this point. :P
- -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)
Erik Moeller wrote:
- we immediately begin serious discussions with the Internet Archive
about hosting some or all of our video content on their servers;
The basic problem with this is that, in my experience and according to reports I have read, IA is slow. They're happy to host any content and they are actively working to get more content on board -- this is the message we got from Brewster Kayle at Wikimania 2006. But they make no guarantees about quality of service. Wikimedia has more outgoing bandwidth and a much higher request rate than IA, and we're well positioned to scale that up. IA has far more storage space than we do, but it doesn't cost us much to add a few TB, which is all we'll need in the near term.
-- Tim Starling
On 7/20/07, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Wikimedia has more outgoing bandwidth and a much higher request rate than IA, and we're well positioned to scale that up.
I'm trying to get hard numbers on this. Is the 3 GBit/s I got from Leon's stats an accurate peak for our combined clusters? Is there any particular data, beyond traffic data & server specs, I should poke Brewster for?
Erik Moeller wrote:
On 7/20/07, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Wikimedia has more outgoing bandwidth and a much higher request rate than IA, and we're well positioned to scale that up.
I'm trying to get hard numbers on this. Is the 3 GBit/s I got from Leon's stats an accurate peak for our combined clusters? Is there any particular data, beyond traffic data & server specs, I should poke Brewster for?
3.5 Gbit/s is our actual peak traffic at this time.
However, does it matter? We could easily handle much more, for a relatively little amount of money.
Also note the difference between our actual peak and the "can handle up to about 10 Gbit/s" in your mail.
On 7/20/07, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
The basic problem with this is that, in my experience and according to reports I have read, IA is slow. They're happy to host any content and they are actively working to get more content on board -- this is the message we got from Brewster Kayle at Wikimania 2006. But they make no guarantees about quality of service. Wikimedia has more outgoing bandwidth and a much higher request rate than IA, and we're well positioned to scale that up. IA has far more storage space than we do, but it doesn't cost us much to add a few TB, which is all we'll need in the near term.
Here are some more numbers from Brewster:
We currently have 2.5Gbit/sec of outbound bandwidth and we use all of it it a lot of the time. We have about 2000TB of spinning storage on 1500 machines. We are good at adding space, but I dont think that is your issue. We are adding of bandwidth bringing us to: 6Gb/sec in the next 90 days (based on a federal grant, and a extra gigabit deal), and with all likelyhood 12Gb/sec by the end of 2008.
So the 10 GBit/s seems to have been based on a projection, but they also seem well poised to scale to meet any needs we may have.
The best way to start a relationship, IMHO, would be to support an embeddable player for all the content the Internet Archive currently hosts which is compatible with our licensing policy. That would require transcoding those collections to Theora in addition to the currently supported formats.
If the user experience with those initial videos is good, I really can see no convincing reason why we would want to take the load of scaling up to terabytes of video content on our own. That seems to be a classic case of "not invented here" syndrome - the Archive is increasingly acting as a kind of non-profit hosting service, and if they can serve our needs in the particular area of video, for free, it seems irresponsible to ask our readers for donations instead, if there's no real added value.
As non-profits, we're not in a competitive space, but a cooperative one, and we should make use of that whenever we can.
On 7/21/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
So the 10 GBit/s seems to have been based on a projection, but they also seem well poised to scale to meet any needs we may have.
The best way to start a relationship, IMHO, would be to support an embeddable player for all the content the Internet Archive currently hosts which is compatible with our licensing policy. That would require transcoding those collections to Theora in addition to the currently supported formats.
"Le voyage dans la lune" is availble in Mpeg4 and divX. I fail to see why we would want to support either format.
If the user experience with those initial videos is good, I really can see no convincing reason why we would want to take the load of scaling up to terabytes of video content on our own. That seems to be a classic case of "not invented here" syndrome - the Archive is increasingly acting as a kind of non-profit hosting service, and if they can serve our needs in the particular area of video, for free, it seems irresponsible to ask our readers for donations instead, if there's no real added value.
Videos over our size limit tend not to be encyclopedic.
On 21/07/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
If the user experience with those initial videos is good, I really can see no convincing reason why we would want to take the load of scaling up to terabytes of video content on our own. That seems to be a classic case of "not invented here" syndrome - the Archive is increasingly acting as a kind of non-profit hosting service, and if they can serve our needs in the particular area of video, for free, it seems irresponsible to ask our readers for donations instead, if there's no real added value.
Videos over our size limit tend not to be encyclopedic.
We do have, you know, these other projects that don't involve writing encyclopedias.
On 7/21/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
We do have, you know, these other projects that don't involve writing encyclopedias.
Dictionaries don't have much different in the way of requirement. Species has no locally hosted media. Books doesn't really need longer vids. Haven't run across any complaints from news. Quote would tend to have copyright issues and wikisource doesn't even have a video section on it's main page.
[[COM:SCOPE]] clearly states "This also means that files uploaded to the Commons have to be useful for some Wikimedia project"
I am generaly fairly aware of the non wikipedia projects.
On 21/07/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/21/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
We do have, you know, these other projects that don't involve writing encyclopedias.
Dictionaries don't have much different in the way of requirement. Species has no locally hosted media. Books doesn't really need longer vids. Haven't run across any complaints from news. Quote would tend to have copyright issues and wikisource doesn't even have a video section on it's main page.
...um.
So, we have issues hosting video - it's a lot better than it was, but it's still a bit daunting. We massively underserve the potential demand for video because we don't go out of our way to make it and engage with its potential. We don't have a community really up and raring to engage with video yet, because we're still building the infrastructure to let them work with it well with our tools. We're generally muddling along and waiting for an epiphany. This isn't a criticism for what we *are* doing with video, but I don't think anyone would argue we could do wonderful things, expand our projects in remarkable ways, that we're just not scaled up to do yet. This entire debate isn't about *should* we support these people, it's about just how we ought to do it.
And you use the fact that we're not doing wonderful impressive things with large-scale use of video beyond short clips to indicate that there isn't any point in it? This really seems a bit... well, self-defeating.
Build it and they will come.
Hello!
We have about 2000TB of spinning storage on 1500 machines.
As far as I remember, 'spinning' is slight exaggeration - there were documents how IA turns off disks after few seconds of inactivity (power efficiency). This should be "2000TB of storage that sometimes spins" probably. On one hand that means lower power consumption, which is great for archive. On another, this adds a slowstart. Dunno how much this would affect, just the term 'spinning' made me think about it :)
On Fri, Jul 20, 2007 at 05:50:44AM +0200, Erik Moeller wrote:
The Internet Archive currently does not transcode to Ogg Theora, but has a transcoding pipeline in place for other codecs. They have recently started embedding the Flash-based open source "Flow Player" for playing back FLV files directly in the browser, and have added FLV to their transcoding pipeline.
If they support transcoding to Ogg Theora, I'm sure we can happily support _Gnash_ FLV in return O:-)
- we immediately begin serious discussions with the Internet Archive
about hosting some or all of our video content on their servers;
I totally agree with other people that we can keep hosting in house. At the same time, maybe we can also set up some kind of feed or load-balancing with Internet Archive, just to make them feel happy and important. All the better to ahh.. help.. them understand our Open-Content mission.
We should do this "cooperation" thing more often. You'd be surprised how many people we can recruit for our c^w^w^w^w cooperate with.
Also, if we set up cooperations with enough people, even if they all have less bandwidth, well, it might start adding up in the long run, too.
Finally it shows that we play well with others, which might get us some interesting forms of additional funding, which is never be a bad idea.
Having an open source Flash implementation & an open source Flash player does not address the patent issues with Flash video, but those who are concerned about violating software patents (which are not universally applicable anyway) could still use the provided Theora files.
This sounds like a job for Mike Godwin. Mike?
read you soon, Kim Bruning
On 7/20/07, Kim Bruning kim@bruning.xs4all.nl wrote:
If they support transcoding to Ogg Theora, I'm sure we can happily support _Gnash_ FLV in return O:-)
- we immediately begin serious discussions with the Internet Archive
about hosting some or all of our video content on their servers;
I totally agree with other people that we can keep hosting in house. At the same time, maybe we can also set up some kind of feed or load-balancing with Internet Archive, just to make them feel happy and important. All the better to ahh.. help.. them understand our Open-Content mission.
We should do this "cooperation" thing more often. You'd be surprised how many people we can recruit for our c^w^w^w^w cooperate with.
Also, if we set up cooperations with enough people, even if they all have less bandwidth, well, it might start adding up in the long run, too.
Finally it shows that we play well with others, which might get us some interesting forms of additional funding, which is never be a bad idea.
I'm completely open to pursuing partnerships in areas where it makes sense to do so. I don't think it's a bad idea to look into IA hosting some of the multimedia content we use -- or for that matter, a larger group of similarly-minded orgs sharing hosting for a larger pool of multimedia content -- though I defer to the tech team on the specifics.
There are plenty of other ideas for working together that may make sense, also; for example, it would be great if it were easier to search for materials in compatible free content licenses and integrate them into Wikimedia projects, or perhaps to search IA from within a Wikimedia. page.
But there is no sense in cooperation for the sake of cooperation alone, just for the sake of "playing well with others"; we have to evaluate such things based on our own principles and mission first.
-Kat
On Fri, Jul 20, 2007 at 10:05:55PM -0400, Kat Walsh wrote:
But there is no sense in cooperation for the sake of cooperation alone, just for the sake of "playing well with others"; we have to evaluate such things based on our own principles and mission first.
Yes indeed. I think that goes without saying. [1]
My point was that cooperating with people in sensible ways leads to, well, more interesting cooperation with more interesting people in more sensible ways.
So while cooperating for the sake of cooperating alone might be going a _tad_ too far, it does make sense to continuously look for ways to cooperate, be it in sensible ways. The curmudgeons laws of reality dictate that 9 out of 10 attempts like this will turn up nothing, but the 10th might in fact turn up something useful (like a Jan-Bart, for instance). I'm all for more Jan-Barts.
sincerely, Kim Bruning
[1] Which probably means I should have said it.
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