[Foundation-l] Proposal: LiteratePrograms.org as Wikimedia Project

Sun Apr 29 11:48:48 UTC 2007

I don't think anyone can comment intelligently until it is clarified what  
"merged into the Wikimedia Foundation family of projects" really means. Does  
this mean that they are now wikis. That anyone can edit them? That the current  
community of WMF will determine how they are managed? 

What are their financials like? Do they have sufficient funds to be  
self-sufficient? If not, do we have sufficient funds to support them? Why is  this a 
merger and not a simple partnership between the two organizations? 

There are many more, similar questions that can be asked. You can't ask  
people to make informed decisions until all these questions are answered.

Danny

In a message dated 4/27/2007 9:13:29 AM Eastern Daylight Time,  
erik at wikimedia.org writes:

I would  like to propose (as a community member)  that

http://en.literateprograms.org/

be merged into the  Wikimedia Foundation family of projects. I have
spoken with the founder of  LiteratePrograms, Derrick Coetzee, and he
would agree to such a  merger.

LP documents computer program source code with in-line  explanations
beyond simple source comments. Using a special extension, all  code
belonging to an example program can be downloaded as a package  with
ease. It is, in my opinion, ideally positioned to become a  wonderful
learning resource for budding programmers in any programming  language.

The structure of LP is fundamentally different from any  existing
Wikimedia project. Yet, it is an educational project with great  value.
LP currently uses the MIT/X11 license, which is similar to CC-BY,  but
more suitable for source code; I believe this makes sense as  these
snippets are typically so small that they should not be  encumbered
further with copyleft.

WMF would be able to give the  project sustainable hosting and exposure
to a vast community. What do you  think? If there is no consensus, I'd
be willing to organize a community  poll as we did for other projects,
but I really see very little that speaks  against LP becoming part of
the WMF project family.
-- 
Peace &  Love,
Erik

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