[Foundation-l] Wikipedia Invites Users to Take Part in Open, Collaborativ...

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Jan 18, 2008 6:56 PM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> What nobody has reflected on is that there are THREE parties to this
> collaboration. It is on Wikieducator where this experiment is happening.
> This indicates that the technology is targeted for the use in an educational
> context.

Nobody has reflect on Wikieducator's involvement because it's not our
interest. Good for them.

The foundation has asked the community to work on Kaltura's stuff, and
that is of interest to us.

[snip]
> It has been
> observed that they are shifting in the "right" direction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Prodigal_Son

There are pre-existing free software tools that would desperately like
our support and attention, some by our own community members.

And what good is the 'right direction' when we know that actually
achieving the right goal is not possible along the path being taken
(because of the use of flash)?

[snip]
> Yay indicates that
> the goal is to make the software free and open according to our criteria.
> Yay acknowledges that more work is needed to accomplish this. Some good
> faith may be in order ?

Good faith tells us, in the absence of information, to assume good
intentions.  I have no doubt the intentions are good, but the actions
are not what we need.  Surely if things are to improve we must all
speak our concerns.

[snip]
> Gregory indicates that other technology may be more opportune. He may be
> right. In the mean time this is a nice shot in the arm to get things moving
> from being stagnant.

Simply providing official support an attention towards worthwhile
pre-existing efforts from users in our community would be a far better
"shot in the arm".   It's easy for satellite developers to feel
unappricated, and hard for them to bring attention to their work over
the noise of the day.

> The WMF has too much technical work to finish before
> they can be involved.. I am sure that other people will collaborate with
> Katlura or will collaborate on a competing product or will do something else
> entirely. Isn't Open Source great ?

Have you downloaded and looked at the Kaltura source?
I have. Based on what is there now I do not expect any of our
community members to be able to contribute much of anything technical.
 It's not like an extension to embed an externally hosted flash object
is anything complex: It seems to be a popular
my-first-mediawiki-extension, there are already three or four that do
it for YouTube.

> When a VC funds the development of Open Source, I would say see the software
> developed, make sure that it fits our need, collaborate and just be happy
> with all this effort that is not for us to do. When you values it like this,
> it is a clear benefit to us all.

A VC?  What is the payback for them then?
I ask this not because I think VC's or evil, or because I think money
is evil... but simply because I can't imagine any acceptable outcome
which wouldn't financially screw anyone bankrolling this.    If
someone wanted to flush away serious money into open video technology,
I could suggest several other alternatives which would result in more
public benefit, and goodwill.