[Foundation-l] Response to message by thread breaking nazi.

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Jan 18, 2008 8:25 PM, Mike Godwin <mgodwin at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> I believe, not wholly irrationally, that much of the discussion about
> how or whether to engage third parties in the free-software, free-
> culture movements is essentially religious.

I hear your belief but I do not share it.

Here you provide exactly the sort of counter productive dismissal of
contrasting views that so frequently escalates disagreements in to
incivil arguments.

In the future I would prefer it if you present your disagreement
without copping out by calling the other side a bunch of fundies.
It's effectively an ad-homnie, and it doesn't further the discourse.

> For some people, the only approach that feels right is a
> Fundamentalist approach -- a potential convert must surrender
> everything, and must prove having surrendered everything, before we
> will even begin to work with the potential convert and teach what we
> believe is the right path.

There are clear and articulable reasons why *successful* free formats
are critical to the success of Foundation's mission, and how the
Foundation's exclusive use of these formats is important in their
success.

If I failed to make that argument clear enough recent messages its
only because we've heard them before, and I'm trying to keep my output
to semi-tsunami level.  If you have doubt or confusion on this matter
please express it and I'd be glad to explain it in detail.

There are clear and articulable reasons why adopting proprietary
formats, despite some short term benefit, will delay or disrupt
further adoption of the free formats which are important to the
mission.

Because you have taken the approach of casing my position as one of
irrationality and not given me the courtesy of an actual counter
argument I am unable to determine exactly where your views and mine
differ.

No religion is required. Only a willingness to value long term goals
over short term convenience.

Certainly there are places where proprietary things still make sense
in the origination, the CPU designs are still proprietary..  Server
firmware.. ;)  The lines shift over time and are interesting to
discuss.. but given Wikimedia's mission there is one clear answer for
the question of where proprietary things should be used: "As
infrequently as possible, and no more infrequently".

But content we push out onto users? Whos use of which will encourage
others to use it? Where reasonable, if imperfect, alternatives exist?
Alternatives which if used exclusively are not as good as the
proprietary, but which can be if someone is willing to suck up the
soft costs, break the tie-ins, overcome the [[network effect]]s and
drive the adoption?

[snip]
> At the same time, I'm wary, because Fundamentalists tend to hate
> heretics more than they hate infidels. When they get angry, it's not
> just the infidels they're ready to string up.

Here is a point where you've left me enough information to post an
material disagreement.

In my eyes there is nothing wrong with the existence of proprietary
software, or non-free content. Let each do as he will.  They are not
infidels, they are people with families and children to feed. They are
people want to do some much good that people will shower them with
money. They are working within the law, within the set of compromises
that our society has chosen to make.  If we think the compromises are
not ideal we should negotiate a new social contract by revising the
laws, but until then while these people try to do good, and try to
follow the law, we should not begrudge them, beyond letting them know
that there are other paths.

It's not our job to convert people. Perhaps convincing a company or
two to change their ways might be helpful, but a nearly unheard of
startup? If it were without compromises ... but I don't think this is,
certainly this indirect promotion of flash is seen as harmful to those
who have built some of the free tools we are already using.

At the same time, the world has a dire need for free tools, free
knowledge, increased sharing, and freedom from obligations to pay
others.  When we pay the proprietary content/software authors we
should be doing so only of our own free will.

For that to be possible there must be at a minimum, alternative set of
software, and alternative set of content, a free baseline. Wikimedia
is building part of that.

[snip; out of order]
> Fundamentalist approach -- a potential convert must surrender
> everything, and must prove having surrendered everything, before we
> will even begin to work with the potential convert and teach what we
> believe is the right path

I don't want Kaltura to abandon anything.  I want them to do what they
want. I want them to succeed.  Though I want all that to happen with a
clear, frank, and honest understanding of what is happening.. I don't
want things being claimed to be free which are not.

I also want us to succeed. And for us to succeed it must be perfectly
viable to use only free formats, not just in parallel where those
without the cash or clout to use proprietary formats can be our
equals. When you suggest an interest in using a non-free format, your
are inherently telling me there is some cost or negative to the free
format that needs to be corrected.

I don't expect Kaltura to see an exclusive use of free formats as a
net-win for them.   The licensing structures for proprietary codecs
are carefully adjusted to make sure that they present less costs of
all commercially interesting forms (usability, adoption, patents; mp3
licensing went to something like ~1/10th what it was pre-Vorbis after
Vorbis was released) than the free alternatives.

I do expect Wikimedia to have a different perspective here because
freedom is a absolute aspect of the mission, and as a non-profit I
would expect a pattern of planning which is much more long term
oriented than a VC driven for-profit startup.

Wikimedia can afford to absorb the "cost" of driving adoption of the
free formats. And once they are adopted, the cost is gone forever...
No one is arguing that we need to use proprietary replacements for
HTML or JPG.

This doesn't mean Kaltura is bad, only that I expect them to be
different.   If I've miscalculated and they can solve the issues.. If
they can offer a solution which completely eschews proprietary
formats, if they can find a business model that allowed them to be
profitable while releasing the back-end and letting us host our own
material...

Then by all means a partnership is in order!   But at this point there
is no road expressed to achieving that, and it appears that we've got
foundation staff expressing that it isn't the case... that we can use
proprietary formats. I don't agree with it, the community doesn't
agree with it, I'd put money on the board not agreeing with it.

> Movements expand, I think, when they welcome potential converts at
> least as much as they test them. I suspect that anyone here who has a
> criticism of Kaltura would find that, if he or she directed their
> criticisms directly to Shay David at Kaltura rather than the
> Foundation for daring to think that Kaltura might be converted, he or
> she would find that Shay is actually quite interested in addressing
> (and fixing) whatever problems you address.

Most of the criticism here has not been of Kaltura directly. Though I
could provide some, I thought it would only be a distraction since
there are so many 'killer' issues that are not 'personal' affronts to
Kaltura.  A lot of what I would say there are more subjective and less
objective.

There is the simple fact that Kaltura is flash based, which the
Foundation should have well known to establish as a deal breaker form
day one, since that has been the outcome of all previous discussions
on the matter. Though that isn't really much of a criticism of Kaltura
itself, though it's a solid reason why it should not be used on
Wikimedia sites.

There is a lot of criticism to make of the press release.  There are
many claims of openness which are marginal. The Kaltura 'extension'
they've placed in SVN is a slight fancy <embed> tag adder.  It
requires the Kaltura site to operate, which is not open.   Flash
itself is not open by any standards that we would reasonably apply.

There is also a lot of criticism to make about the foundation's
handling of this:  I found out about this because Kaltura was pushing
their press release all around weeks ago, and free software developers
came to me to chew me out for not warning them that Wikimedia was
switching to flash, and in their view undermining their efforts.  Gee.
Thanks!

And on with the other points I made in prior mails which will never be
answered ...   Kaltura is mostly slideshow software, we have slideshow
pre-existing software made by our own contributors which requires no
proprietary technology at all, where is the foundation support and for
that? etc.

I ask these questions, and I know others have asked them before me.
Can we not simply communicate without the constant accusations bad
faith, fundamentalism, failure to assume good faith, accusations of
hate for commercialism, NIH syndrome, or all the other ways we use to
politely insult each other?

There are important issues with substantial practical impact over the
long term.  They deserve our attention and consideration.