[Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?

[Andrew Lih]

On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 9:14 AM, Todd Allen <toddmallen at gmail.com> wrote:

> There aren't two principles in conflict here.
>
> This proposal asks to move to a "free as in beer" model, where content will
> be free to view, but not necessarily to reuse (and with the opaque license,
> it may not even be possible to tell). We could choose to make that change,
> but it is a major change to the founding principles of what we do.  As such
> it should be discussed directly and across all projects as such a major
> change, and not backdoored through a vote that is on its surface a question
> about format support.


As much as I hate how MPEG-LA and MPEG-4 creates a non-free climate for our
video, it's unfair to use "backdoor" to characterize intent of either
community members or WMF employees in this area.

Video has been a big shortcoming in Wikipedia and in the FLOSS community in
general. Overcoming means we need to consider the unique nature of the
problem with some possible new solutions. That's not backdooring -- that's
directly addressing the needs of content creation given the current legal
and IP situation.

Let's debate the merits of the case and not assume bad faith of the folks
putting it forward.

-Andrew