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

[Andrew Gray]

On 16 January 2014 16:05, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 16 January 2014 16:02, Andrew Lih <andrew.lih at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Instead, I'd neutralize backdoored to something like, "unwittingly shifting
>> our cherished values for the worse."
>
> This is about the fourth time this has come around; I hope you can
> understand that it's harder to credit "unwittingly" than if it were
> the first.

It's certainly come around a lot, but it's never really been put to
the question.

I've seen "we should support mp3/mp4/mpeg/flash" a lot - skimming my
mailing list archives, it was brought up in 2005 (already as a
perennial suggestion), 2007, 2008, 2009, and early 2013. None of these
actually resulted in a formal proposal or anything other than a flurry
of discussion (though in 2008 there was a draft board resolution which
would have explicitly ruled out patent-encumbered formats...)

To me, this seems to be one of those decisions that we made years and
years ago and have never really thrashed out properly and widely,
rather than just saying "well, we said no". As such, I think a clearly
structured community-wide discussion is a definite advance - and if
it's a firm no, and we remain in the status quo, we'll have a firm
basis for that in future rather than a sort of decision-by-inertia.

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk