[Foundation-l] Wikipedia Invites Users to Take Part in Open, Collaborative Video Experiment

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Jan 18, 2008 4:00 PM, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 18/01/2008, Chad <innocentkiller at gmail.com> wrote:
> > The Foundation announcing support of some random YouTube-clone startup
> > is really the final straw. They have now /officially/ abandoned the vision of
> > free content.
>
> Would you care to justify this assertion with anything? I see a
> particularly *pointless* decision, but no-one's eating any babies
> here.

Generally the words "final straw" would preclude baby-eating. It's a
straw, a issue that takes a set of issues over his own *personal*
threshold.

For any random disliked action it's fairly likely that it will be
*someone's* final straw.

So that Chad feels this issue was the final straw for him shouldn't
guide us much,  but his (snipped) position  "When Flash itself becomes
open-source, I'll join. Until then, I'm not touching it and I
encourage the community to do the same", no doubt also held by other
looking at his message and thinking "right on!", is worth our
consideration.

I sympathize with Chad's frustration, but I don't share his grim
outlook on that particular issue.  Even in the most negative
interpretation of Kaltura Wikimedia remains clearly committed to
freedom and the free formats freedom requires.  If you dismiss this
commitment over one or two confused issues you'll lose the opportunity
to help ensure that the commitment remains and can be realized over
the long run.