[Foundation-l] Software Policy Draft

[Mohamed Magdy]

>
> I personally find the idea of "principles" much more fitting than a
> "policy" in these matters.
>
>   
The idea of thinking about the future and the enforcing nature of the 
policy sounds appropriate, may be, just may be, after many years from 
now, the people working might take an easy route of using proprietary 
software. always using free things increases the sustainability of a 
given thing hence the code is always available and any porting/changes 
needed to make it work can be done without reverse engineering it.

 
> One random thought, prompted by Tim's reference to education/free
> software and which is our priority. I agree with him and therefore I
> think it is very important to keep in mind (I am not sure we can fit
> this in there, or even if we should) that these "principles" should
> also not make make it difficult for people to access our content
> *because* they are using proprietary software.
>
>   
I won't mind if a user using IE is faced with a white screen with a link 
to use firefox :P
> As such, I would say that one of our principles should also make sure
> that ease of use for all platforms is one of our strong points.
>
> I am thinking as an example of the implementation of Greg's video
> reader to make sure that anyone can access the content hosted on our
> servers under an otherwise obscure format. Or maybe, to answer
> Gerard's concerns, that the Wikimedia Foundation should one day pay
> for the development of obscure free fonts to be placed at the disposal
> of everyone.
>
>   
Yes that is how things should be solved imho providing you have the 
right guys (you sure have them now :))
> Delphine
>
>   

--ar:user:alnokta