Addressing various points:
1. Does the main Wikipedia/Wikimedia foundation really want to be located on French soil and subject to French law with all international funds subject to judgements by French courts? I don't think that's wise unless it can't be avoided.
2. Technically, isn't a caching proxy server a better idea? That way, those in France can avoid the transatlantic round trip time increases but still edit the main wikipedia/Wikimedia databases. (Mav, that's something your test didn't show, unless you were doing it from a French proxy service)
3. Caching proxies seem like a better way to obtain legal isolation, since proxies and caching are fairly widely accepted as being different from the sites they are caching. I assume that the French foundation can be set up as a non-proft dedicated to increasing the responsiveness of the Wikipedia when accessed from within France.
4. This is also a nice model for local caches around the world.
Hi, If I don't mistaken, the idea is just to have a static version of Wikipedia. Edit will be redirect to the « true » Wikipedia. The problem seem that to be able to have this server we need an official foundation in France (I don't know exactly why). Hope Yann will explain that in better words...
Aoineko
----- Original Message ----- From: "user_Jamesday" user_Jamesday@myrealbox.com To: wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org Sent: Tuesday, November 11, 2003 12:57 PM Subject: Re: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Setting a new server in France for frenchwikipedia
Addressing various points:
1. Does the main Wikipedia/Wikimedia foundation really want to be located on French soil and subject to French law with all international funds subject to judgements by French courts? I don't think that's wise unless it can't be avoided.
2. Technically, isn't a caching proxy server a better idea? That way, those in France can avoid the transatlantic round trip time increases but still edit the main wikipedia/Wikimedia databases. (Mav, that's something your test didn't show, unless you were doing it from a French proxy service)
3. Caching proxies seem like a better way to obtain legal isolation, since proxies and caching are fairly widely accepted as being different from the sites they are caching. I assume that the French foundation can be set up as a non-proft dedicated to increasing the responsiveness of the Wikipedia when accessed from within France.
4. This is also a nice model for local caches around the world.
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Guillaume Blanchard wrote:
The problem seem that to be able to have this server we need an official foundation in France (I don't know exactly why). Hope Yann will explain that in better words...
It's important enough to me to keep everyone together and not in separate independent organizations, that I will personally pay for a server in Europe, with my own money, to be owned by me or by the Wikimedia Foundation, whichever is most desirable legally, rather than risk having separate organizations under separate control risking a fork or violation of our policies in the future.
We should try to solve the problems that we have, without accidentally creating worse problems in the future.
--Jimbo
user_Jamesday wrote:
Addressing various points:
- Does the main Wikipedia/Wikimedia foundation really want to be
located on French soil and subject to French law with all international funds subject to judgements by French courts? I don't
The Wikimedia foundation is "located on Florida soil and subject to Florida and USA law". Supose the only reason why it is Florida for Wikimedia is that Jimmy is from there and so it is the logical choise.
If where let say Lars Aronsson the founder of Wikipedia it would be i think a Swedish foundation for Wikimedia.
That does not change whit the creation of a foundation in France.
think that's wise unless it can't be avoided.
I agree that it is better not to create a new foundation, not because it is in France, but because one for now must be enough.
- Caching proxies seem like a better way to obtain legal isolation,
since proxies and caching are fairly widely accepted as being different from the sites they are caching. I assume that the French foundation can be set up as a non-proft dedicated to increasing the responsiveness of the Wikipedia when accessed from within France.
- This is also a nice model for local caches around the world.
Sounds good. Now the traffic is on a global scale not so much. But like there are now many ISP's who have there owne "tucows" mirror and a "sourceforge" download mirror ISP's mayby also will setup there wikipedia mirror so the have to pay less expensive international bandwidth.
Walter Vermeir wrote:
The Wikimedia foundation is "located on Florida soil and subject to Florida and USA law". Supose the only reason why it is Florida for Wikimedia is that Jimmy is from there and so it is the logical choise.
Yes, but also, from a freedom of speech point of view, the US is a very logical choice. France, Germany, Canada, Great Britain, all have laws which I think *might* directly impact our ability to produce an NPOV encyclopedia in some cases. Notice that the French are often concerned, with good reason, that something might violate French censorship laws.
On the other hand, if for some technical reason it is really necessary to have a European legal presence in order to do something we want to do, it should be easy enough to do that and keep things isolated.
One example: in my research yesterday (admittedly limited) it is not possible to register wikipedia.fr unless we have a French organization. I am as yet unsure if there are services (as there are for many countries) that will hold the name in trust for us.
I wonder if perhaps ouvation can do that?
(But, I do not know the politics of ouvation, nor whether they are trustworthy, so I only give them as an example.)
--Jimbo
Yes, but also, from a freedom of speech point of view, the US is a very logical choice. France, Germany, Canada, Great Britain, all have laws which I think *might* directly impact our ability to produce an NPOV encyclopedia in some cases. Notice that the French are often concerned, with good reason, that something might violate French censorship laws.
--Jimbo
The US isn't without censorship laws, either. Under some interpretations of the Patriot act, it is illegal to give information to a suspected terrorist organization that may help them in any way. Under every interpretation of the Patriot II act, it is illegal to acknoledge the existence of someone who has been detained, eg. writing a biography about them. LDan
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Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
The US isn't without censorship laws, either. Under some interpretations of the Patriot act, it is illegal to give information to a suspected terrorist organization that may help them in any way.
Yes, under some interpretations held by people who are not involved in any way in prosecuting or judging such cases.
Under every interpretation of the Patriot II act, it is illegal to acknoledge the existence of someone who has been detained, eg. writing a biography about them.
Of course, that act was not passed, and is not law, so it's a moot point, but even so, I'd be interested to read more, because that sounds to me extremely far-fetched. The Supreme Court would strike down a law like that before the ink was dry.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales wrote:
Under every interpretation of the Patriot II act, it is illegal to acknoledge the existence of someone who has been detained, eg. writing a biography about them.
Of course, that act was not passed, and is not law, so it's a moot point, but even so, I'd be interested to read more, because that sounds to me extremely far-fetched. The Supreme Court would strike down a law like that before the ink was dry.
One of the big problems when this sort of thing happens, is the amount of time it takes for things to work their way through the system, even when there's no doubt that they will be struck down.. Until that happens there is a presumption on the part of the bureaucrats and administrators that they have the right to do what they're doing.
Ec
On Tue, 11 Nov 2003 05:52:27 -0800, Jimmy Wales wrote: <snip>
One example: in my research yesterday (admittedly limited) it is not possible to register wikipedia.fr unless we have a French organization. I am as yet unsure if there are services (as there are for many countries) that will hold the name in trust for us.
I wonder if perhaps ouvation can do that?
(But, I do not know the politics of ouvation, nor whether they are trustworthy, so I only give them as an example.)
--Jimbo
Hello Jimbo,
Unfortunatly the french NIC doesnt allow this kind of thing. Upon domain registration you need to provide a document about your company / fundation whatever and you can't register for a name that isn't the name of your company.
Is wikipedia name registered as a trademark worldwide ? That might lead to a wikipedia.tm.fr for france :0)
cheers,
Antoine wrote:
Is wikipedia name registered as a trademark worldwide ? That might lead to a wikipedia.tm.fr for france :0)
We are currently working on the trademark application for a US trademark, and although I know very little about it, I think that through treaties or whatever, that'd be all we need to have a worldwide trademark in most countries, including the EU countries.
But, I know very little about it.
--Jimbo
Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com writes:
We are currently working on the trademark application for a US trademark, and although I know very little about it, I think that through treaties or whatever, that'd be all we need to have a worldwide trademark in most countries, including the EU countries.
IANAL and so on, but...
No, there is no such thing as a worldwide or global trademark protection. You still need to apply for trademark registration in all countries. The date you register your US trademark may have something to say if others apply for a trademark for "Wikipedia" in any other country than the US after you apply for the US trademark but before a given date (some months after your US trademark) and you apply for a trademark in the same country before the same date.
I am unsure if the EU is "one trademark contry", but I don't think so.
Walter Vermeir wrote:
If where let say Lars Aronsson the founder of Wikipedia it would be i think a Swedish foundation for Wikimedia.
Well, it would be "in Sweden", but it wouldn't be "a foundation", because that is not the traditional way to organize things over here.
If it was in Germany, it would be an "e.V." (eingetragene Verein, or registered membership association), and a similar construction would be used in Sweden. I think some kind of membership association is now being discussed on the German wiki-de mailing list.
The Swedish chapter of ISOC is now a Swedish membership association, and all I know is that it took quite a lot of bureaucracy to make this interface with the international mother organization. The problem seems to be that Swedish laws require the Swedish association to be independent, having their own bylaws, so its elected board can be held responsible under Swedish laws, and at the same time the international organization doesn't allow the chapter to be fully independent, but its bylaws and board must be approved by ISOC.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation does not have a Swedish chapter, but a completely independent membership association "with similar goals" exists in Sweden (www.efs.se). Saves a lot of bureaucracy.
If the Wikimedia foundation looks for a solution like this, a lot could be learned from already existing international organizations such as ISOC, the Red Cross, etc. I could volunteer to be the overpaid representative in Geneva with a secret bank account. :-)
On Nov 10, 2003, at 19:57, user_Jamesday wrote:
- Technically, isn't a caching proxy server a better idea? That way,
those in France can avoid the transatlantic round trip time increases but still edit the main wikipedia/Wikimedia databases. (Mav, that's something your test didn't show, unless you were doing it from a French proxy service)
A caching proxy that doesn't know the wiki's internal state would just function as a non-caching proxy, which would make it slower to load pages and group all its users behind a single IP address.
Each page can be updated at any time, and we need to be able to show the current version to users, including when they view the page immediately after editing it. Pages may be altered with user-specific information such as the login name, extra links, and various output options for people who are logged in, and talk page update notification for both logged-in and non-logged-in users.
The simplest way to ensure this is to disable caching altogether, and require that every page be reloaded every time. That puts unnecessary strain on the server regenerating and resending unchanged pages as people click around, so we do allow for some caching, with caveats:
The cache-control header is marked to tell proxies *not* to cache pages, because a page sent to one person isn't necessarily the page that would be sent to someone else. The browser can cache, but is told to re-request the page every time, so that the cached page can be rechecked as to whether it's current. If it is current we don't have to regenerate the page or wait for it to download, but there is still a round trip to the server for every hit.
'Plain' page hits by non-logged-in users are cached on the server and the cached version is sent out without additional rendering if and only if the wiki knows it's an okay match. (Page hasn't changed, non-logged-in user with no talk notification.) These cached pages are also sent compressed if possible, which saves on bandwidth.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
user_Jamesday wrote:
- Does the main Wikipedia/Wikimedia foundation really want to be
located on French soil and subject to French law with all international funds subject to judgements by French courts? I don't think that's wise unless it can't be avoided.
That's possibly a good point, but I don't consider it a particular danger. I live in the US, beyond the reach of French courts.
This is perhaps a good argument to attempt to locate a European subsidiary foundation in the nation with the best laws for freedom of speech, though. Which nation would that be?
- Technically, isn't a caching proxy server a better idea? That
way, those in France can avoid the transatlantic round trip time increases but still edit the main wikipedia/Wikimedia databases. (Mav, that's something your test didn't show, unless you were doing it from a French proxy service)
I am personally completely unconvinced at the present time that a server in France would be worth the trouble for anyone. The transatlantic round trip time represents only a tiny fraction of the time for rendering a page. Our speed problems are much better addressed with our existing upgrade plans.
Having said that, I should also say that I have been segregating funds donated in the Euro currency, in case we find that spending money in Europe directly is a wise thing to do.
--Jimbo
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