On 25/10/2007, Tim Starling tstarling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Magnus Manske wrote:
On 10/25/07, Bryan Tong Minh bryan.tongminh@gmail.com wrote:
Now that we have proper support for video in MediaWiki, the upload limit of 20 MB is reached much more easily. Could this limit be increased?
<record mode="broken"> enable URL-based uploads... </record>
The resource requirements on the server side are the same, it just means the user has to have a web server. There's no reason we would should have a different limit for uploading via HTTP download than for HTTP uploads.
The system administration question is: do we have the resources and architecture to support a dramatic growth in disk space and bandwidth usage driven by large video uploads?
My tentative answer would be that I don't think we're very far ahead of the growth curve on storage. I don't know how expensive it will be or whether we will be able to deploy new hardware fast enough. Our record for deployment of storage hardware has been pretty poor.
Ignoring the problems of practically and resources, I think a higher limit is necessary to allow Commons to fulfill it's mission. Not only video, but with music (long classical movements that we couldn't reasonably break into parts) and images (high-resolution maps, astronomical images, &c.).
There is a great wealth of PD films that would enrich Commons but are too big to go up at the moment (early silent films: Edison, e.g.).
There are two issues here: (1) should Wikimedia allow larger file uploads?; and (2) can Wikimedia allow larger file uploads? My answer (1) is yes, and my answer to (2) is a tentative "probably". Whether it is something we can reasonably do now or not, I think it is something we should push for.