[Foundation-l] [Wikitech-l] Java becomes Open Source, what next?

Cormac Lawler cormaggio at gmail.com
Tue Nov 14 10:29:04 UTC 2006


On 11/14/06, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Sun Microsystems will make all the Java code they own available under the GPL:

and on wikitech-l Erik wrote:

> A community review process, where open source applets can be nominated
> for inclusion in Wikimedia, or particular resources / applet authors
> can be community-certified as trustworthy, with the final step being
> implemented by a sysop or bureaucrat, strikes me as a reasonable
> compromise between security and ease of inclusion.


Check this out - I'm an English Wikiversity bureaucrat, and I haven't
a clue about how any of this works or could/should be managed! In my
opinion, in order to most productively conduct this conversation, we
need to think of the people on the projects this will impact - by
asking things like the following:

*Is an "evil" java resource going to be easily spotted by a project
sysop/bureaucrat? (How do you spot an "evil" or potentially evil
resource?)
*How would java resources be added to a project? The same as - or
similar to - a file? Or simply through adding code into a page?
(and consequently)
*How much patrolling will this require?

I'd of course be incredibly excited to have engaging learning
materials added to Wikiversity, as well as applications for all our
projects. I'm just trying here to imagine how we would deal with this
"in the trenches", so to speak.

Please pardon my war-like language here - must be a hangover from the
[[w:Armistice]] weekend :-)

Cormac



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