On Sun, Feb 14, 2016 at 11:37 PM, Lodewijk <lodewijk(a)effeietsanders.org> wrote:
that is a perfectly fine opinion to hold, thanks for
sharing. However, the
WMF should, in my opinion, only make political statements like severing
ties with an organisation that offers something that is useful to the
editing community, either when legally obligated, or when there is an
overwhelming consensus.
I don't sense such overwhelming consensus just yet.
Having connection with Elsevier by WMF and not having "overwhelming
consensus" between us on this issue -- after Elsevier started
litigation against Sci-Hub -- are highly hypocritical positions of WMF
and Wikimedia movement.
Similar litigation produced the death of Aaron Swartz. In his case, it
was JSTOR, which initiated the trial.
Fortunately, WMF didn't make any deal with JSTOR but with Elsevier, as
it would be direct attack on Aaron's legacy.
Until few months ago, connection with Elsevier could have been
tolerated as edgy, but useful. However, we are now in completely
different situation. I hear *our* friends are under high pressure
because of this and I just hope all of them are more emotionally tough
than Aaron was.
Now, hypocritical people all over Wikimedia movement think it's fine
to tolerate such connection. Because it doesn't hurt us and they are
giving us cookies. It hurts just people belonging to our wider
movement, whom we accidentally know. Why should we care about them?
Besides being legally obligated or having overwhelming consensus, I
suppose we have some values, some moral obligations and backbone.
--
Milos