[Foundation-l] Freedom, standards, and file formats

[David Gerard]

2008/9/27 Michael Snow <wikipedia at verizon.net>:

> Before I joined the board, I understand the board considered a
> resolution to create a file format policy. These are the kinds of
> questions we need to consider before we can set such a policy. We're not
> going to be passing anything at next week's meeting, though, the
> discussion isn't far enough along and it wouldn't be right to push it
> through with so little consultation. But we need to have the
> conversation, so I would like the community's feedback on this list,
> both now and feel free to continue during and after our meeting.


For the moment: as others have noted in this thread, there's no need
for us to even consider compromise on audio and video formats, because
we're winning. Theora and Vorbis will be supported in-browser by
Firefox 3.1. (What's the stats for browser user agents on Wikimedia?)

For the future: we may have a reason to compromise temporarily at some
times. As I understand it - and I strongly welcome correction if I'm
wrong! - we put some Java software on the servers and loaded the
Cortado Java viewer in browsers before Java was actually 100% free
software, because Sun's programme for freeing Java was progressing
nicely and there was little likelihood we'd be embarrassed by them
failing to complete it. So it may not be a good idea to straightjacket
ourselves.


- d.