[Foundation-l] [Commons-l] Wikipedia Invites Users to Take Part in Open, Collaborative Video Experiment

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Jan 19, 2008 2:13 AM, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> As has been pointed out many times, there is no exclusivity here.

Okay, then I'll be looking forward to an nearly infinite number of
partnerships with well aligned open projects.

> Just
> last December, Sue & I allocated a substantial piece of our
> Wikiversity presentation time at Stanford to let Michael Dale talk
> about MetaVid;
> we're hosting it in our SVN repository, and I've also

My understanding is that Michael Dale was told that Wikimedia would be
using Kaltura and that it might consider metavid some day 'in the
future'. Perhaps I misunderstood, but this is also appears to be what
was claimed in the presentation you gave to Sun Microsystems, and it
was consistent with the press release that Kaltura was circulating
when I heard this.

The SVN hosting (which started a few weeks ago) is, as I understand
it, a direct results of Kaltura-related complaints that WMF is
ignoring requests for help from open projects.

I'd ask Michael to respond directly,  but I expect he is in Australia
for FOMS (Foundations of Open Media Software,
http://www.annodex.org/events/foms2008/pmwiki.php/Main/CFP).

Many months ago I asked if I could travel to Australia (on my own
dime, none the less) to attend FOMS for Wikimedia.  That, today, WMF
has no one there speaks volumes to WMF's actual commitment to open
media.

Talk is cheap.

[snip]
> the project in other reasonable ways. It's not mature enough for real
> world deployment on WMF sites; nor is Kaltura.

Correct. Yet WMF is putting our press releases and calling for
community help with one and not the other. And it's not just Metavid
vs Kaltura, there are dozens of open media projects which we are not
supporting but could and should be.

There are even quite a few open source flash video editors, if there
was a reason to go the flash route, and we were approached years ago
by the authors of a commercial Java video editor that wanted to work
with us.  Unlike Kaltura (and metavid), many of these other parties
have mature technology.

[snip]
> I'm not going to argue with you about the technical merits of either
> approach. There's no point in doing so: I am happy to let the open
> source ecosystem compete for the most viable solution.

At least you've given me the respect of letting me know that I should
not expect an answer from you on those questions.

[snip]
> We're quite transparent about what Kaltura is and what it isn't.

I don't agree here. The press release says open about a zillion times,
but the existing level of openness is not especially high. I think it
is misleading, and so do a number of outside parties who have a high
degree of expertise in web media.  I suppose this is a disagreement
which we are not going to be able to resolve.

> The Wikimedia Foundation is not an isolationist organization. We don't
> want to be an island -- we want to be the ocean.

That sounds nice, but I'm not sure what it means. I can guess, I suppose.

Being all things to all people is worthless if you are nothing to
yourself. The world does not need another ocean, but it does need a
collection of uncompromisingly free knowledge. Not because compromises
are evil, but because we already have a wealth of compromised options
to choose from!

I think that most of the community would be sad to see Wikimedia
abandoning the things that make it special and distinct from competing
information sources..  Even though doing so might speed our growth and
allow us to blanket the world, I think many would consider that a
hollow victory.

The Foundation has a specific mission which can only be hurt by
adopting proprietary formats. Apparently, you don't agree but you are
unwilling to engage in discussion on this matter. While this continues
a long standing pattern of failing to address these issues, there
isn't much left for me to say in the absence of a counter argument.