[Foundation-l] Donation of DVDs to Wikimedia Foundation Projects

[Erik Moeller]

On 1/3/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> Because of their apparently non-proactive approach with copyright and
> use of proprietary formats, they may at some point in the future
> become a highly discouraged external link target on English Wikipedia
> much like YouTube is today.

Of course video files hosted there for Wikimedia would have to be made
available in Ogg Theora. Building this bridge would be a good starting
point for opening the discussion about proprietary vs. free formats in
other contexts, and collaborating on making free formats more
widespread.

> If the simple hosting some large
> static files is outside of out domain of expertise

As far as I can tell, it's not a matter of expertise, but of cost. The
cost of hosting this single file would be negligible, but if, by doing
so, we expand our criteria of inclusion to cover similar video
lectures and educational materials, we need to carefully consider if
we want to do so alone. I do believe we need to start collaborating
with other organizations, especially in the fields of education and
archiving, even if they do not follow a blueprint of our ideology --
after all, no good missionary preaches only to the converted.
-- 
Peace & Love,
Erik

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