[Foundation-l] [SPAM] [SpamAssassin=3.89] foundation-l Digest, Vol 37, Issue 139

[Larry Pieniazek]

Interesting... 

> Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2007 15:13:01 +0200
> From: "Erik Moeller" <erik at wikimedia.org>
> Subject: [Foundation-l] Proposal: LiteratePrograms.org as Wikimedia
> 	Project
> 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
> 
> DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of 
> the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
> 
> "An old, rigid civilization is reluctantly dying. Something new, open, 
> free and exciting is waking up." -- Ming the Mechanic

No comment on the merits of merger/support/working together, etc... Although
some sort of closer link would be nifty! ( I added LiteratePrograms to the
Interwiki map a few weeks ago:
[http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Interwiki_map&diff=539556&oldid
=535718] ...)

I'm just posting to say that I'd commend people to go check out the site,
the extensions used to enable downloading of "compilable code" are
interesting and the site seems a neat idea. It fills a different niche than
say, SourceForge as it's not so much a respository of tools and releasable
things, as it is a repository of learnings about coding techniques. Merging
with WikiVersity/books or whatever, for example, would require installing
those extensions, I would think, which might not fit well with the rest of
WikiVersity, so I'd think keeping it separately sited would be good.

Larry Pieniazek
Hobby mail:  lar at miltontrainworks.com