On 16 January 2015 at 17:10, Greg Grossmeier <greg(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
<quote name="David Gerard"
date="2015-01-16" time="16:27:22 +0000">
> This is not a great idea because it makes WMF
wikis unforkable in
> practical terms. The data is worthless without being able to run an
> instance of the software. This will functionally proprietise all WMF
> wikis, whatever the licence statement.
"Unforkable" as a binary is not true.
That's why I said "functionally".
"Not easy to fork without
implementing all of the pieces carefully" is more accurate. But it's
still possible, especially since all of the config/puppet code that is
used to do it is open and Freely licensed.
A licence that was the GPL with the additional requirement of
attaching 1kg of gold to each copy would be technically free as well,
but present difficulties in practice.
What I'm saying is that "technically" is insufficient.
It ain't easy hosting a site this large with this
amount of traffic
(thanks Ops!) so it's not surprising that "forking" it wouldn't be
easy
either.
However, at present low-traffic copies are pretty easy.
- d.