[Foundation-l] Wolf Mountain MediaWiki Appliances Released

[Domas Mituzas]

Hi!!!

> And one more thing. If we are truly going to challenge google and  
> yahoo
> at some point for internet search engine
> supremecy, this is the path to go. Google got there by seeding the
> internet with appliances which skulk and harvest
> content from the web with massive storage.

I never thought the appliances they sold (and that was their  
revenue..) did ever participate in their global search. Is this  
another myth used, or do you really believe they used spiders they  
_sold_ to harvest information for them? Why did they build their  
datacenters at all?
They did market their appliances as company-wide search boxen. Stuff  
we do with lucenes.

> I am currently adding search engine capabilities combined with
> automated translation and wiki formatting so we can construct a search
> engine over time.

Search engine of what? "Distributed" in search engine context doesn't  
mean John in Alaska is having a cluster with Jeb in Texas. It means  
that people run datacenters with lots of servers stacked there, and  
sub-millisecond medium connecting all that.
Unless, of course, you are following bittorrent lead.

> It will take us about two years to get where google is, but I have  
> more powerful technology than
> they use, so over time, I think we can eventually get there and  
> wikify the internet.

Um. You could share your technology, for common good, sure!

> With all revision pages its around 3 TB total.

That really requires advanced tech. At Wikipedia revision pages are  
compressed, and a proper compression run contracts whole dataset into  
0.5T or so (or less).

>> You forgot China and their needs!
> Good point. I don;t know where to start on that one, so some  
> suggestions
> would be welcome. Perhaps I should post the filtering code somwhere  
> and let folks who know
> better than I on the china issue create a categories template for  
> filtering China content.

irony 1 |ˈīrənē; ˈiərnē| |ˌaɪrəni| |ˌʌɪrəni|
noun ( pl. -nies)
the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally  
signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect :  
“Don't go overboard with the gratitude,” he rejoined with heavy  
irony. See note at wit .
• a state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to  
what one expects and is often amusing as a result : [with clause ]  
the irony is that I thought he could help me.
• (also dramatic or tragic irony) a literary technique, originally  
used in Greek tragedy, by which the full significance of a  
character's words or actions are clear to the audience or reader  
although unknown to the character.

> Well, that's also my view as well, I hate censorship, but like it or
> not, the conservative element of the US comprises 98% of the folks  
> who run these organizations
> and have real $$$ to support Wikimedia

hypocrisy |hiˈpäkrisē| |həˌpɑkrəsi| |hɪˌpɒkrɪsi|
noun ( pl. -sies)
the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which  
one's own behavior does not conform; pretense.

> Greg got it ....

I did not :(

I just opened Five Pillars article, and I know that I may fail at  
'code of conduct' sometimes, sorry, but, Wikipedia has neutral point  
of view.
No 'please donate' buttons will make filtered forks (a.k.a. mirrors)  
worth mentioning as "helping Wikipedia".
Filtered resource/mirror does not give full power to edit the free  
content.
Sure, $$$ attracts business people, and we have few business people  
here, but we have the pride of not taking that with strings attached.

We have pride to make free information resource ;-)

It would be an easy task to make a list of countries worth visiting  
to provide wikifilter (I'm quite amused to find wikifilter.org is  
still free ;-) - there're lots of things people should not know  
(because it is all very very depressing (c) Colbert ;-)
But I hope foundation has more noble causes to exist.

Cheers,
Domas