[Foundation-l] File format policy

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Jan 19, 2008 6:51 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > If no free formats exist for some medium, we'd probably prefer to
> > encourage the creation of free formats for it.
>
> Sure, but should be ban the use of it in the mean time? I don't know...

You're sort of deep into hypotheticals there. ;)

So hypothetically:
There is a type of material which can't be represented in a free file
format, and we see a need to host that kind of material.

Should we ban the use of it until someone produced a free format for it?

I think if that case were to ever arise it would be reasonable to not
use it until the foundation had a chance to consider it and pass an
exemption (or not).  That kind of decision should be a strategic one,
made intentionally and on a case by case basis. The implications could
be very different for for different cases.  Does that make sense?

Of course, since we can't currently think of a good example for this...

Brianna Laugher wrote:

> Is this the anti-DRM clause? I think so, but I just want to confirm.

I think I'd call it a no-DRM clause:  It sounds similar to the DRM
related clause in the Creative Commons licenses: "You may not impose
any effective technological measures on the Work that restrict the
ability of a recipient of the Work from You to exercise the rights
granted to that recipient under the terms of the License."
(cc-by-sa-3.0-unported)

An anti-DRM clause might say that we wouldn't allow a format which
could, in some mode, use DRM.

It might make some sense to separate out the requirements into "the
format must" and "the file must".    I don't think WMF needs to forbid
formats which merely support some kind of DRM (and the subset clause
at the bottom would already avoid that),  but files should never be
DRMed.  So 5 would apply to the files, but not necessarily the
formats.

The rest of the terms seem to apply mostly to formats, and then only
to files by extension.

> Is it right to include "software" in relation to this? Does it mean
> software that runs on our servers? (Because the projects don't really
> host software, except for mediawiki.)

I think "on Wikimedia Foundation projects" says the materials we keep
on the site, and it seems that it's now been revised to make that
really clear.

I think it makes sense: What the servers (or staff) use internally is
a separate issue from what we send out to users, so it should be
governed by a different policy (and I thought there was one, but I
can't seem to find it right now).

My own view is that WMF's format policy should be a lot more
freedom-strict than a policy for what runs on the servers: What we
send to people has a huge impact since it will influence their own
software use, while what we use internally has a much less direct
impact. (Although there are a lot of good reasons that there should be
a strong preference internally.)

As far as 'software' goes, there is software the sites distribute to
users: source-code attached to articles on computer science subjects
and client-side components (JavaScript, etc) that are used by the
site, for example. While there may not be too much of it today today
it's probably good to also be forward looking in these things. ;)

Geni wrote:
> > 4. Not itself subject to material patent-related restrictions on use
> > that are incompatible with free software, nor only able to be authored
> > or viewed by software so restricted.
>
> Problematical because it fails to make clear that such any patents
> that have had restrictions waved for the time being need to have had
> their restrictions waved until the patent expires.

Your ability to spot odd corner cases always impresses me. I thought
about this policy all evening and didn't come up with *that*.

I think the text "incompatible with free software" manages to avoid
all sorts of issues with incomplete wavers (waived only for web use,
waived only for non-commercial use, etc), but yea, I guess "waved only
for the next two years" is arguable, even if the intent is clear. It's
almost not a hypothetical: there are a number of video coding patents
currently waived for the next couple years, although only for web use.

Since you pretty much can't patent things retroactively, this can be
addressed with a simple change:

4. Not known to be currently or eventually subject to material
patent-related restrictions on use that are incompatible with free
software, nor otherwise only able to be authored or viewed by software
so restricted.

The inclusion of 'known' also makes sense because you can often not be
absolutely certain about non-infringement,  you can be reasonably
confident one way or the other, but it's usually much easier to be
confident about infringement than non-infringement.

Alternatively, the lead could be revised to throw in a "perpetually"
that covers all the requirements, but the patent case is special in
that it will frequently be possible to see future problems since the
patent must pre-date the format or else the patent will not be valid
(and thus not material).

...

All in all it sounds pretty good to me.