[Foundation-l] Open source CRM needed for Wikimedia

[Kim Bruning]

On Mon, Jun 26, 2006 at 01:23:30AM +1000, Angela wrote:
> I'm not buying into the arguments Brad and his friends are putting
> forward for Wikimedia to turn away from it's reliance on open source
> software. Especially when that decision is being taken by some unknown
> group of people with no community or Board consultation about possible
> alternatives.

The critical element of open source for wikimedia is the avoidance of
vendor lock-in.

Software used by wikimedia SHOULD be open source, but though
it MAY in some instances be proprietary, it MUST avoid vendor lock-in.
[1]

That way, even if we can't publish or share _some_ parts of our
infrastructure right this very minute, we at least retain the ability
and option to do so in future. [2]

read you soon,
	Kim Bruning

[1]   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL
      NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED",  "MAY", and
      "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
      RFC 2119.

[2]   Avoidance of vendor lock-in is important and advantageous for many
      business reasons as well. To keep things concise, I'm sticking to just 
      wikimedias own key cultural objective.

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