[Foundation-l] PediaPress

[MZMcBride]

Hi.

Can someone explain the Wikimedia / PediaPress relationship to me? They just
got spammed on the Wikimedia blog[1] yesterday, which reminded me that I've
never really understood the nature of this relationship.

I don't understand why this specific company/organization has been given
special status (when there are surely thousands of companies looking to
partner with Wikimedia). They had a custom MediaWiki extension installed[2]
that has a very prominent place in the sidebar of one of the most popular
sites in the world. Why?

I also don't understand who would want a printed copy of a Wikipedia
article. It seems antithetical to the point of the Internet and the creation
of an online encyclopedia.

Maybe I'm just missing something. The whole thing has always felt very odd
to me, though.

MZMcBride

[1] 
http://blog.wikimedia.org/blog/2010/11/10/wikipedia-hard-cover-editions-now-
available/
[2] http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Collection