[Foundation-l] Policy governance ends

[Yann Forget]

Hello,

teun spaans wrote:
> End:The WMF establishes a sister foundation which has as its aim to free
> existing content.
> 
> Needs to be met ?
> Some types of information, especially media, are not in the PD and will
> probably not become in the PD in the foreseeable future. Think of
> photographs of people who recently died, and recent events.
> 
> By bringing this aim into a separate foundation, it becomes clear to donors
> to what aim the donate their money, and the current WMF lessens the risk of
> becoming liable for content.
> 
> For whom ?
> Wikipedia volunteers, and every one who wants free information (in the sense
> of a free world)
> 
> At what cost ?
> Legal fees for establishing a foundation.

Yes, I would also agree with that, and I would go even further. The
Foundation should give some of its budget to this aim (10 % ?).

Actually, I would like to make an estimation where Wikimedia projects
stand compared to its aim: "Providing free knowledge to people in their
own language."

Wikipedia: it is already the biggest encylopedia which ever existed in
most (all?) languages.

Wiktionary: not to bad for some languages, but everything has yet to be
done for most. There are non free dictionaries more complete than
Wiktionary for most languages.

Wikibooks: except a few subjects, everything is to be done.

Wikinews: only a few languages really covered.

Wikisource: not bad for a few languages, but could be much better seeing
the public domain documents available on the Net, not talking about
paper books yet to be scanned.

Commons: may be already one of the bigger repository of *free* pictures,
yet the potential is huge. Quite lacking for sounds and videos. The
search sucks, and I think that the current review process (for
classification, copyright and quality) would not scale much if the
number of contributors increase suddently.

For other projects (Wikiversity, Wikispecies and Wikiquote), I cannot say.

So I would like that the Foundation specifically devotes some its budget
on projects which are currently not as successful as Wikipedia, compared
to their objective.

Regards,

Yann