[Wikimedia-l] Community consultation + Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director selection process

[MZMcBride]

Hi.

Is there a community consultation period built in to the selection process
for a new Wikimedia Foundation Executive Director? If not, should there be?

In trying to figure out what the selection process may look like, I
re-reviewed some of the relevant FAQs and timelines:

* https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:Permalink/90968
* https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:Permalink/91132
* https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Permalink/7127367

As I understand the basic process, the Transition Team will ultimately
find a suitable candidate and will make a recommendation to the Wikimedia
Foundation Board of Trustees. (Please correct me if this description is
mistaken... this is largely unchartered territory for Wikimedia.)

When this recommendation is made and prior to the Board voting, should the
Wikimedia community have the opportunity to weigh in on the candidate
Selection prior to final approval? If so, in what way?

These questions are not meant to suggest that the Wikimedia community and
the Transition Team have not been working together already (e.g., in
creating a connectors list, drafting interview questions, etc.).

While nobody would reasonably argue that every Wikimedia Foundation
employee be vetted by the Wikimedia community, it seems to me that this
particular position is unique given its enormous influence in shaping
Wikimedia's course. As I understand it, the Wikimedia Foundation Board of
Trustees is (s)elected to ultimately make the choice of who oversees the
daily operations of the Wikimedia Foundation as Executive Director.
However, I believe that ensuring that the community is adequately
consulted is important.

Relatedly, I've asked the Executive Director Transition Team on-wiki about
the possibility of more regular status updates on its progress in some
form (mailing list posts, wiki page updates, etc.).

MZMcBride



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

[Samuel Klein]

Yes.  The current discussion has confused people about the things that are
not very contentious:
* Ingesting and converting out of more formats is good: we should start
ingesting MP4 and converting on the fly.  There are no major legal risks to
our doing so.
* We have a tiny video community; even so we are one of the largest
collection of WebM videos on the web.  We should try to increase the global
population of WebM videos so that there is more incentive for remixers and
videographers to start playing with and using compatible tools.
* We should increase our support for toolchains for WebM and similar
unencumbered formats: by helping the major clients implement support.

If we clarify those things, a new RFC that focuses on implementing MP4
autoconversion would have more support.  It would be easier & faster if the
RFC creators chose to close discussion for now while reframing & revising
the focus of discussion.

SJ


On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 11:18 PM, MZMcBride  wrote:

> David Gerard wrote:
> >Given Commons' attitude on even incredibly unlikely copyright risks
> >... it's just ridiculous to assume such a provision on a format would
> >be allowed to pass.
> >
> >I see at least one person has deemed it a snowball-pass after just a
> >few hours. I find this ... unlikely.
>
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comment/MP4_Video
>
> Looking at the discussion, there are currently approximately 105 users
> under general support, 167 users under general oppose, and 34 users under
> partial support (contributions only). The few other sections have a
> negligible amount of activity.
>
> There's already discussion on the talk page about how to close what will
> inevitably be a very long and contentious discussion. If we avoid treating
> this RFC as a vote, there's possibly hope for a reasonable compromise.
>
> MZMcBride
>
>
>
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-- 
Samuel Klein  @metasj   w:user:sj  +1 617 529 4266
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?

[MZMcBride]

David Gerard wrote:
>Given Commons' attitude on even incredibly unlikely copyright risks
>... it's just ridiculous to assume such a provision on a format would
>be allowed to pass.
>
>I see at least one person has deemed it a snowball-pass after just a
>few hours. I find this ... unlikely.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comment/MP4_Video

Looking at the discussion, there are currently approximately 105 users
under general support, 167 users under general oppose, and 34 users under
partial support (contributions only). The few other sections have a
negligible amount of activity.

There's already discussion on the talk page about how to close what will
inevitably be a very long and contentious discussion. If we avoid treating
this RFC as a vote, there's possibly hope for a reasonable compromise.

MZMcBride



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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Thanking anonymous users

[Mark]

On 1/17/14, 3:55 AM, Erik Zachte wrote:

Here are some charts which breakdown edits into several categories, reverts are 
counted separately. Of course edits is not editors, but it could be indicative 
of changed behavior patterns/policies. In the ongoing reassesment of metric 
definitions one thing discussed is whether we should count productive editors 
separately (I think we do), and if so on what basis (e.g. x edits per 
week/month which survived y days of not being reverted).

http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/PlotsPngEditHistoryAll.htm



Thanks, that's interesting information!

Edits-that-survived is one baseline definition of productivity, though 
I'd be interested in data with a higher threshold for productive edit, 
if there's some way to distinguish them. For example what I really want 
to know is what the trends are for article-writing activity, e.g. how 
many editors we have who regularly expand articles with new information. 
Spot-checking some articles, these edits are by far in the minority, so 
in edit counts they are typically *completely* swamped by other kinds of 
editing. For example, picking one random article with a short edit 
history, here is a manual classification of its 12 edits:
- 2 substantial content additions (original author, plus 1 subsequent 
author who added a paragraph)
- 7 bookkeeping/formatting edits (category sorting, maintenance tags, 
infobox, bot replacing a template, etc.)

- 3 copyedit edits

Those are all valuable in various ways (and I do all three kinds of 
editing myself), but a minority of the edits (2/12) have produced the 
vast majority of the article content (and all of its references). What I 
fear with the aggregate edit counts is that minor changes in bookeeping 
edits swamp even significant changes in the content edits, because the 
content edits are a relatively small percentage of the total count. So 
I'd be interested in seeing data on those categories separated out, 
though it's admittedly difficult to collect.


One mechanically countable statistic might be a count of edits that 
include a reference. Would miss references not added with a  tag or 
other easily recognizable pattern, but might produce interesting trends 
nonetheless.


-Mark


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

[Victor Grigas]

On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 3:33 PM, Samuel Klein  wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 9:14 AM, Todd Allen  wrote:
>
> > This proposal asks to move to a "free as in beer" model, where content
> will
> > be free to view, but not necessarily to reuse
>
>
> I'm not sure this is correct.
>
> There are two different implementations possible.
> * Accept MP4 and support a transcoding toolchain, but only show readers and
> editors patent-unencumbered* formats.
> I think this is an excellent idea, and something we should implement.
>
+1


>
> * Accept MP4 and support transcoding as above, show readers and editors
> patent-unencumbered formats by default, and allow them to download the
> original file if they wish.  This would allow people using toolchains that
> only support MP4 to continue to edit one another's work without themselves
> having to implement a transcoding toolchain on the client side. Again, the
> default presentation for anyone who doesn't know what they are doing would
> be unencumbered, but we would be more extensively providing a server-side
> transcoding toolchain for users who do not or cannot [depending on whether
> they have full control over the hardware they use].
>
> Lionel writes:
> > Most of the time it is a bad idea to upload a video without any form of
> editing. Most of the time you need to
> > remove at least the begining and the end of a video file.
>
> Just because that video is incomplete doesn't mean it is a bad idea to
> share.  As with text, we should be able to upload drafts and work on them
> online.  This sort of basic editing is something we should support online
> post-upload.  Forcing uploaders to have an offline editing toolchain in
> order to be able to share material is unnecessary; the uploader doesn't
> have to be the one to refine the result.
>
> Sam.
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-- 

*Victor Grigas*
Storyteller 
Wikimedia Foundation
vgri...@wikimedia.org
https://donate.wikimedia.org/
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?

[Samuel Klein]

On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 9:14 AM, Todd Allen  wrote:

> This proposal asks to move to a "free as in beer" model, where content will
> be free to view, but not necessarily to reuse


I'm not sure this is correct.

There are two different implementations possible.
* Accept MP4 and support a transcoding toolchain, but only show readers and
editors patent-unencumbered* formats.
I think this is an excellent idea, and something we should implement.

* Accept MP4 and support transcoding as above, show readers and editors
patent-unencumbered formats by default, and allow them to download the
original file if they wish.  This would allow people using toolchains that
only support MP4 to continue to edit one another's work without themselves
having to implement a transcoding toolchain on the client side. Again, the
default presentation for anyone who doesn't know what they are doing would
be unencumbered, but we would be more extensively providing a server-side
transcoding toolchain for users who do not or cannot [depending on whether
they have full control over the hardware they use].

Lionel writes:
> Most of the time it is a bad idea to upload a video without any form of
editing. Most of the time you need to
> remove at least the begining and the end of a video file.

Just because that video is incomplete doesn't mean it is a bad idea to
share.  As with text, we should be able to upload drafts and work on them
online.  This sort of basic editing is something we should support online
post-upload.  Forcing uploaders to have an offline editing toolchain in
order to be able to share material is unnecessary; the uploader doesn't
have to be the one to refine the result.

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

[Michael Peel]

On 17 Jan 2014, at 19:11, Andrew Lih  wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 12:07 PM, Nathan  wrote:
> 
>> One thing that hasn't come up in the debate is the relative importance of
>> Wikimedia's approach to video, given the existing video ecosystem. YouTube
>> enables cc-by uploading and has 4 million videos with a free license, and
>> 6.5 million videos that are explicitly educational. Are we sure focusing on
>> our own base of uploaded videos is the approach best calibrated to serving
>> Wikimedia's mission?
>> 
> 
> "In general, downloading videos that other people have posted on YouTube is
> not allowed."
> https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/56100?hl=en
> 
> Most folks have concluded it's a violation of YouTube's Terms of Service.
> 
> So much for the "remix" part if you want to do it outside of YouTube's own
> editor.
> 
> More here in the comments:
> https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/27533

Doesn’t that break the terms of the CC-BY license, if not legally then at least 
ethically? The right to distribute copies is built into the license, no?

Thanks,
Mike


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Re: [Wikimedia-l] This weird trick will make readers of mass messages on village pumps happier

[Amir E. Aharoni]

[OMG, I actually wrote quite a lot of that page.]


--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
‪“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬


2014/1/17 Federico Leva (Nemo) 

> This is already in the guidelines:  org/wiki/Best_practices_for_reaching_out_to_projects_in_multiple_languages
> >
> You won't reach all massmessage users on this list.
>
> Nemo
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] This weird trick will make readers of mass messages on village pumps happier

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

This is already in the guidelines: 


You won't reach all massmessage users on this list.

Nemo

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

[Nathan]

On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 2:37 PM, Andrew Lih  wrote:

> Ah. Well if you're not even buying into the legitimacy of photos on
> Commons, I'm not sure there's a way to have a productive discussion about
> video.
>
> -Andrew
>
>
No, I think the vast repository of images, properly curated, is valuable
and useful. But Commons is still pretty close to square one with video, so
it seems natural to discuss whether it can fulfill the same role for video
content that it does for images, and whether there exists out there enough
interested reusers to make large investments worthwhile.

Reading the multimedia vision and watching the video answers some of my
questions, in that it seems the goal for videos is more limited than it is
for images. I don't think it would be of much value to have 100 million
videos where only 50,000 are used in another Wikimedia project, but judging
by the video presentation that clearly is not the WMF's goal or direction.
Some of the comments in the RFC seemed to suggest that as an object and I'm
glad that isn't the case.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?

[Andrew Lih]

Ah. Well if you're not even buying into the legitimacy of photos on
Commons, I'm not sure there's a way to have a productive discussion about
video.

-Andrew



On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 2:26 PM, Nathan  wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 2:15 PM, Andrew Lih  wrote:
>
> > I'm not sure what debate you're referring to. If it's about whether video
> > belongs in Wikipedia, I don't think it's even in question.
> >
> > Wikipedia started in 2001 as all text.
> >
> > It didn't have photos then, we now have photos.
> > It didn't have audio then, we now have audio.
> > It didn't have video then, we now have video (albeit not that much).
> >
> > Video shouldn't need special justification to be a full-fledged part of
> > Wikiepdia's content.
> >
> >
> >
> More specifically, if growing Commons as a repository for video in the same
> way it is for images is the best use of Wikimedia resources. I'd think
> lobbying Google to be more expansive in its license permissions for cc-by
> YouTube videos, curating existing educational video content, etc. might
> bear more fruit. Not to say that using video from Commons to illustrate
> other projects isn't valuable, but hosting millions of videos not used on
> any projects (as it is with images on Commons) seems like a misuse of time
> and effort given the far more popular alternatives.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?

[Bjoern Hoehrmann]

* Andrew Lih wrote:
>Read the details and you'll see that free (as in beer) Internet Broadcast
>video doesn't need a license.
>
>SUMMARY OF AVC/H.264 LICENSE TERMS:
>http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/AVC_TermsSummary.pdf
>
>"In the case of Internet Broadcast AVC Video (AVC Video that is delivered
>via the Worldwide Internet to an End User for which the End User does not
>pay remuneration for the right to receive or view, i.e., neither
>Title-by-Title nor Subscription), there will be no royalty for the life of
>the License."

You need a license to enjoy this term of the contract.
-- 
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
Am Badedeich 7 · Telefon: +49(0)160/4415681 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
25899 Dagebüll · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/ 

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

[Nathan]

On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 2:15 PM, Andrew Lih  wrote:

> I'm not sure what debate you're referring to. If it's about whether video
> belongs in Wikipedia, I don't think it's even in question.
>
> Wikipedia started in 2001 as all text.
>
> It didn't have photos then, we now have photos.
> It didn't have audio then, we now have audio.
> It didn't have video then, we now have video (albeit not that much).
>
> Video shouldn't need special justification to be a full-fledged part of
> Wikiepdia's content.
>
>
>
More specifically, if growing Commons as a repository for video in the same
way it is for images is the best use of Wikimedia resources. I'd think
lobbying Google to be more expansive in its license permissions for cc-by
YouTube videos, curating existing educational video content, etc. might
bear more fruit. Not to say that using video from Commons to illustrate
other projects isn't valuable, but hosting millions of videos not used on
any projects (as it is with images on Commons) seems like a misuse of time
and effort given the far more popular alternatives.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?

[Andrew Lih]

I'm not sure what debate you're referring to. If it's about whether video
belongs in Wikipedia, I don't think it's even in question.

Wikipedia started in 2001 as all text.

It didn't have photos then, we now have photos.
It didn't have audio then, we now have audio.
It didn't have video then, we now have video (albeit not that much).

Video shouldn't need special justification to be a full-fledged part of
Wikiepdia's content.



On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 12:12 PM, Nathan  wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 12:07 PM, Nathan  wrote:
>
> > One thing that hasn't come up in the debate is the relative importance of
> > Wikimedia's approach to video, given the existing video ecosystem.
> YouTube
> > enables cc-by uploading and has 4 million videos with a free license, and
> > 6.5 million videos that are explicitly educational. Are we sure focusing
> on
> > our own base of uploaded videos is the approach best calibrated to
> serving
> > Wikimedia's mission?
> >
>
> Actually it did come up, allow me to reproduce the comment in a vote posted
> by Brad Patrick (former WMF general counsel):
>
> I agree that the dominant file format means we need to be able to
> comprehend what is ingested. But it is not okay to ingest and spew using
> that file format if it means we are putting on someone else's intellectual
> property yoke. Commons' great benefit to the world is no-questions-asked
> reusability, and I don't want to see it compromised in this fashion,
> license freebie or otherwise. I'm with User:David
> Gerard
>  on this. On the whole it is of far less importance to me as there is no
> guiding principal or idea that WMF is intended to be an *exclusive*
> repository of anything. Others do nothing but video, and that's great. I
> want there to be video, *but it is not part of a grant vision to
> out-YouTube YouTube, or Vimeo, or any other huge site with billions of
> hours of video*. User:Fuzheado<
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fuzheado>
>  is right - we lack the present toolset to be able to address such volumes
> of video, and I'm not sure that's a bad
> thing.--BradPatrick
>  (talk ) 14:45,
> 16 January 2014 (UTC)
>
> Emphasis is mine. I'm sure smart people have debated this before, can
> anyone point me to it?
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?

[Andrew Lih]

On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 12:07 PM, Nathan  wrote:

> One thing that hasn't come up in the debate is the relative importance of
> Wikimedia's approach to video, given the existing video ecosystem. YouTube
> enables cc-by uploading and has 4 million videos with a free license, and
> 6.5 million videos that are explicitly educational. Are we sure focusing on
> our own base of uploaded videos is the approach best calibrated to serving
> Wikimedia's mission?
>

"In general, downloading videos that other people have posted on YouTube is
not allowed."
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/56100?hl=en

Most folks have concluded it's a violation of YouTube's Terms of Service.

So much for the "remix" part if you want to do it outside of YouTube's own
editor.

More here in the comments:
https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/27533
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?

[Andrew Lih]

On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 12:05 PM, Bjoern Hoehrmann wrote:

> * Andrew Lih wrote:
> >BTW, Luis from WMF has put a very lengthy and detailed analysis of the
> >legal issues that does help quite a bit, at the end of the RFC:
> >
> >
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comment/MP4_Video#Commercial_use_and_h264
>
> I note that the Wikimedia Foundation does not really have to obtain a
> license to use H.264 encoders and decoders, users could do the format
> conversions elsewhere and the Wikimedia Foundation could then "merely
> distribute" the files. As the RfC notes, "Merely distributing MP4 files
> never requires a patent license." That would spare us problems like the
> "secret contract" issue.
>

That would be the status quo. But that's also the problem -- the conversion
tools are lacking and serve as a choke point for contributions. Right now
the most ubiquitous MP4 creation devices (your mobile phone) cannot
directly upload to Commons because of this issue. (Disappointingly, this is
a reason for some Commons users to cheer/vote who simply don't like ease of
video contribution.)

Requiring users to do format conversion on their side also it makes it
extremely hard for remixing, since popular video editors don't ingest Ogg
or WebM as downloaded from Commons. You would have a situation of
MP4->Ogg/WebM conversion; upload to Commons; next user downloads Commons
Ogg/WebM; Ogg/WebM->MP4 conversion; ingest to video editor. That means
there's undesirable generation loss.


> Why does the proposal, instead, suggest the Foundation should engage in
> the practise of, not just mere distribution, but Internet Broadcasting?
> That apparently requires a patent license. For that matter, would users
> who download video automatically obtain Internet Re-Broadcasting rights?
>

Read the details and you'll see that free (as in beer) Internet Broadcast
video doesn't need a license.

SUMMARY OF AVC/H.264 LICENSE TERMS:
http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/avc/Documents/AVC_TermsSummary.pdf

"In the case of Internet Broadcast AVC Video (AVC Video that is delivered
via the Worldwide Internet to an End User for which the End User does not
pay remuneration for the right to receive or view, i.e., neither
Title-by-Title nor Subscription), there will be no royalty for the life of
the License."



> I do note that according to MPEG LA there are only about 1300 entities
> with relevant license agreements, if putting a H.264 video on my web
> site whether people can download it is Internet Broadcasting and I do
> not obtain an Internet Broadcasting license by pressing the "record"
> button on my camera, or some other automatic process, then that figure
> is several orders of magnitude too small, or patent holders tolerate a
> lot of infringement (for the moment).
>

Yes, this is what's confusing about MPEG-LA's stance -- basically it wants
to rich entities with deep pockets near the end of the distribution chain
to pay.

This article might help, but it's still confusing:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-2101-264.html

-Andrew
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] A Multimedia Vision for 2016

[Jane Darnell]

Yes, an interesting vision indeed and I like these use cases. Having
read the other thread about the copyright difficulties with video
codecs and I understand this vision is a long way off, but I like this
short intro to keep us all on point about what we would like to see:
ease of use in contributing and in therefore sharing, both internally
(cross project) and externally (to twitter or whatever).

2014/1/14, Fabrice Florin :
> Dear Gerard,
>
> Thank you so much for your kind words about the proposed Multimedia Vision
> for Wikimedia sites by 2016. (1)
>
> I am glad that our first user stories resonate with you. They intentionally
> focus on ways that our community may interact through multimedia -- and we
> view these types of productive collaborations between different user groups
> as a key objective for our work.
>
> We really appreciate your thoughtful blog post about this vision (2) and
> fully agree with you that more user stories will be needed to illustrate the
> scope of possible interactions between different communities around the
> world -- from schools to professional or personal sites around the world. We
> aim to identify more user stories like these to inform our next steps.
>
> We are actively working with Lydia, Daniel and the Wikidata team to
> implement structured data on Commons and integrate it with Wikidata later
> this year, in collaboration with our community. We expect this work will
> improve a range of multimedia workflows as a result, from curation to search
> and beyond. We will definitely address the points you raise.
>
> I would also like to thank all the community members who have joined our
> discussion about this multimedia vision (3). We are grateful for your
> feedback, and very glad to see a partnership develop between our community
> and the foundation around these goals, so we may better serve our users
> together.
>
> If you haven’t commented yet, please share your feedback here, after viewing
> the video:
>
> http://ur1.ca/gdljy
>
> You are all invited to join our office hours IRC chat about multimedia this
> Thursday, January 16 at 19:00 UTC (4) — we look forward to discussing this
> vision and other media projects with you then. More on this later.
>
> Thanks again for everyone’s wonderful work in helping share free knowledge
> through multimedia.
>
> All the best,
>
>
> Fabrice
>
>
> (1) Multimedia Vision 2016:
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Multimedia_Features/Vision_2016
>
> (2) Blog Post by Gerard:
> http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2014/01/wikimedia-multimedia-featuresvision-2016.html
>
> (3) Discuss the Multimedia Vision:
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Multimedia_Features/Vision_2016
>
> (4) Multimedia Office Hours chat on IRC: Thursday at 19:00 UTC
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours#Upcoming_office_hours
>
>
> ___
>
> Fabrice Florin
> Product Manager, Multimedia
> Wikimedia Foundation
>
> Multimedia Hub:
> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Multimedia
>
> Profile:
> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Fabrice_Florin_(WMF)
>
>
> On Jan 10, 2014, at 4:01 AM, wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
>
>> Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2014 09:33:30 +0100
>> From: Gerard Meijssen 
>> To: Wikimedia developers ,   WikiData-l
>>  ,   Wikimedia Commons Discussion 
>> List
>>  ,Wikimedia Mailing List
>>  
>> Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Wikitech-l] A Multimedia Vision for 2016
>> Message-ID:
>>  
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>>
>> Hoi,
>> Fabrice, I very much love the two stories described in the vision. It
>> describes not only a functionality that is technical, it also describes
>> how
>> our community may interact. That is great.
>>
>> What I missed are the consequences of the planned integration of Commons
>> with Wikidata. I blogged about it [1] and I suggest three more stories
>> that
>> could be told because they are enabled by this integration. What I do not
>> fully understand is how the community aspects will integrate in an
>> environment that will be more multi lingual and multi cultural as a
>> consequence.
>>
>> I have confidence that the three stories that I suggest will be realised
>> by
>> 2016. Not only that, I am pretty sure that as a consequence the amount of
>> traffic that our servers will have to handle will grow enormously to the
>> extend that I am convinced that our current capacity will not be able to
>> cope. Then again, they are the luxury problems that make us appreciate how
>> much room we still have for growth.
>> Thanks,
>> GerardM
>>
>>
>> [1]
>> http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2014/01/wikimedia-multimedia-featuresvision-2016.html
>>
>>
>> On 10 January 2014 01:39, Fabrice Florin  wrote:
>>
>>> Happy new year, everyone!
>>>
>>> Many thanks to all of you who contributed to our multimedia programs last
>>> year! Now that we have a new multimedia team at WMF, we look forward to
>>> making some good progress together th

Re: [Wikimedia-l] This weird trick will make readers of mass messages on village pumps happier

[James Forrester]

On 17 January 2014 08:24, Amir E. Aharoni wrote:

> Put it inside the following HTML tag:
> 
> Your important notification.
> 
>

​[Snip]​



> Of course, it's not great to have to remember to write it every time, so if
> there is a way to automate in MassMessage or EdwardsBot or whatever is used
> to send these messages, it would be great.
>

Filed as https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=60176.

​J.
-- 
James D. Forrester
Product Manager, VisualEditor
Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

jforres...@wikimedia.org | @jdforrester
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?

[Ted Chien]

Hi David,

We were selling video editing softwares at that time, and that's what I
remebered for the MPEG-4 royalties. But MPEG LA would do the license thing
case by case, maybe my information is not correct now.

I just found that MPEG LA has announced in 2010 that it will not charge
royalties from Internet video that is free to users from the lifetime of
the license, maybe WMF projects can fit the requirement? I think it needs
the legal team to do the investigation.

The MPEG LA press release for free Internet Video:
http://www.mpegla.com/Lists/MPEG%20LA%20News%20List/Attachments/74/n-10-08-26.pdf

Regards,
Ted Chien
-- Sent from my HTC New One
2014/1/17 下午11:29 於 "David Gerard"  寫道：

> On 17 January 2014 15:03, Ted Chien  wrote:
>
> > From my knowledge when I was working as an engineer in the multimedia
> > software company back in 2006, if there's no transcoding to MP* formats,
> no
> > patent fee is required. So if you upload MP4 files then download them
> > without any transcoding it should be fine (correct me if I'm wrong). We'd
> > only been charged by MPEG LA for encoding the MPEG-4 video at that time.
>
>
>
> So we'd be fine transcoding *from* MPEG4?
>
>
> - d.
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?

[Emmanuel Engelhart]

Le 16/01/2014 20:13, geni a écrit :
> On 16 January 2014 13:02, Emmanuel Engelhart  wrote:
> 
>> Dirac, a free codec developed by the BBC, seems to be a good solution.
>> Do people have some experiences with Dirac?
>>
>>
> No. BBC managed to get it working dedicated machines a few years back and I
> think there is an alpha trans-coder out there but people have lost
> interest.

Indeed, it seems the development of Dirac is pretty slow/frozen :(
But, I have tested it with ffmpeg: the lossless compression seems to work.

> Theora is good enough for the no compromise on freedom mob and
> development interest is moving towards webM.

Please refer to the original question, we speak here about lossless
codecs and AFAIK neither VP8 nor Theora are lossless (or have lossless
options).

But it seems that VP9 has one and that last month ffmpeg has started to
merge patches to support lossless VP9 transcoding... This might be the
best approach to deal with raw video material on Commons:
https://lists.ffmpeg.org/pipermail/ffmpeg-devel/2013-November/150547.html

Emmanuel
-- 
Kiwix - Wikipedia Offline & more
* Web: http://www.kiwix.org
* Twitter: https://twitter.com/KiwixOffline
* more: http://www.kiwix.org/wiki/Communication

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[Wikimedia-l] 2014 Ombudsman Commission

[Maggie Dennis]

Hello, everyone.

I'm writing with information about the Ombudsman Commission (OC), the small
group of volunteers who investigate complaints about violations of the
privacy policy, and in particular concerning the use of CheckUser tools, on
any Wikimedia project for the Board of Trustees.


I apologize for the length of the announcement. :)

The application period for new commissioners for 2014 has recently closed.
The Wikimedia Foundation is extremely grateful to the many experienced and
insightful volunteers who offered to assist with this work.

Last year, the WMF made a change to the number of the OC on a trial basis.
Although the OC is kept intentionally small due to the high level of trust
required of its members, we expanded the commission from five members to
seven. This expansion had two primary purposes. First, the commission bears
a heavy responsibility of ensuring that users are granted the privacy that
is their due under the Wikimedia Foundation's privacy policy. We hoped that
an expansion of the commission would help them remain swiftly responsive to
issues sent to them even when some of the commissioners had pressing
matters beyond their volunteer work. Second, commissioners had
traditionally been asked to surrender their checkuser functions on their
home wikis during their term on the commission, a request that helped to
reduce the potential for conflict of interest between the roles but which
we also believed placed an undue burden on smaller projects that had fewer
checkusers to assist. With a larger commission, commissioners were able to
continue in that also critical function, only recusing if issues were
raised relating to their direct colleagues.

At the beginning of this application period, we polled the current
Ombudsman Commission, and their consensus is that the seven number
functions very well for the role. We share that view. We believe that the
benefit the additional two members brought to those areas is sufficient to
the functioning of the OC to warrant the growth. However, since we believe
it is important to carefully balance the need to keep this group small
against the requirements that they remain flexible and available, we will
continue to monitor this need going forward.

With this in mind, I am pleased to announce the composition of the 2014 OC.

Returning to the commission are two members who joined in 2013:


*User:Huji, who primarily edits Farsi Wikipedia, where he is an
administrator, bureaucrat and former CheckUser. He has also contributed
substantially to Simple Wikipedia, English Wikipedia and Meta and is a
Wikimedia developer.

*User:Levg, who primarily edits Russian Wikipedia, where he is an
administrator, oversighter and bureaucrat and where he has twice served as
an arbitrator.


Their willingness to remain, to bring their familiarity with processes and
their experience to the new arrivals, is greatly appreciated!

Joining them are:


*User:Avraham, who primarily edits English Wikipedia, where he is a
CheckUser, oversighter, admin and bureaucrat. He also serves on Commons as
an admin and oversighter and is a steward.

*User:Gnom, Lukas Mezger, who primarily edits German Wikipedia. Lukas, a
licensed attorney, has previously served Wikimedia as a legal intern for
the Wikimedia Foundation.

*User:M7, Mario Benvenuti, who primarily edits Italian Wikipedia, where he
is also known as M/.  Mario is also an admin and bureaucrat on Meta and a
steward. He is a former CheckUser.

*User:Polimerek, Tomasz Ganisz, who primarily edits Polish Wikipedia (where
he is an admin and former arbitrator), Polish Wikibooks and Wikimedia
Commons. He also serves the Wikimedia movement as the president of
Wikimedia Poland and on the Grant Advisory Committee. He is a former
CheckUser.

*User:Stryn, who primarily edits the Finnish Wikipedia and Wikidata,
serving as an admin on both and as an oversighter on Wikidata

2013 saw other changes in the Ombudsman Commission. The WMF was able to
bring the majority of the OC together in person in San Francisco to discuss
the best functioning of their role and how the Wikimedia Foundation could
more fully support their work. Among other things, this resulted in a
Request for comment on Meta concerning the OC's scope (
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Scope_of_Ombudsman_Commission),
which is now before the Board. Particularly since the OC may be evolving,
with new processes and practices created, and since 2014 may be a
particularly important year for the OC with the proposed changes to the
Privacy Policy (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Privacy_policy), we felt it
was a good idea to ask two additional members of the OC to serve the 2014
commission in an advisory capacity. User:Sir48 and User:Thogo, who have
both served the OC for three years, have consented to offer their guidance
to the new commission and also, if necessary, to fill in in the unlikely
event that the Ombudsman Commission is unable to act due to incapacity or
recu

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

[David Gerard]

On 17 January 2014 17:12, Nathan  wrote:

> property yoke. Commons' great benefit to the world is no-questions-asked
> reusability, and I don't want to see it compromised in this fashion,
> license freebie or otherwise. I'm with User:David
> Gerard
>  on this. On the whole it is of far less importance to me as there is no


Note that my favoured option is actually ingestion of MP4 (and of
anything, really), but not serving it. Ideally you should be able to
get a video on your phone of that UFO that just flew by and upload it
in your "Wikimedia Commons uploader" app without having to faff around
with dodgy shareware wrappers around FFmpeg on a computer first, or
attempt to run a slow and battery-hungry conversion on your phone
itself.


- d.

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Re: [Wikimedia-l] Extensive feedback from WMDE to the FDC process

[Balázs Viczián]

My five cents here would be that how about considering longer time frames
for grants, like 2-3-5 years (I was too tired to understandably explain
this yesterday to Anasuya)

Here in Hungary individuals can offer 1% of their income tax to nonprofit
organizations (these are accounted and transferred to the nonprofits by the
state) These funds must be spent within 3 years (so not 1 but 3) from their
reception (unused funds has to be transferred back at the end of the 3rd
year).

Cheers,
Vince

*Balazs Viczian*
Executive Vice President
*Wikimédia Magyarország Egyesület*

Tel: +36 70 633 6372
Mail: balazs.vicz...@wikimedia.hu
Web: www.wikimedia.hu  Blog: Magyar Wikipédia Magazin
Facebook: Magyar Wikipédia 


2014/1/17 Anders Wennersten 

> While I believe the "FDC process" by now is well understood and
> communicated, I feel the understanding of the actual group, "FDC" and the
> deliberation we perform is less well understood (and communicated)
>
> And if WMDE feedback will be elaborated upon, I think it will be of value
> understanding "FDC" and the deliberation process and I have therefor put
> down a short description of this on the talkpage, based on my own
> experience as one of its member (1)
>
> I see very much in this feedback related to the prerequisites to the FDC,
> not how we have implemented our inputs into recommendations. Also I think
> some of the wanted more detailed feedback and interaction with the FDC as a
> group is very hard to implement considering how our deliberation process
> for now is set up .  But feedback is always a good thing and hopefully this
> feedback can be processed to improve the process and give all involved a
> happier feeling of the funds dissemination in the future.
>
> Anders
>
> (1) https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants_talk:APG/FDC_
> portal/Comments/Extensive_feedback_from_WMDE_to_the_FDC_
> process#FDC_as_a_group
>
> Pavel Richter skrev 2014-01-15 17:36:
>
>  Hello everybody,
>>
>> I have just posted an extensive feedback from WMDE on the FDC process here
>> on meta:
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/FDC_portal/
>> Comments/Extensive_feedback_from_WMDE_to_the_FDC_process
>>
>> The statement was drafted by WMDE's Supervisory Board and myself.
>>
>> We are very much looking forward to a discussion and I would like to
>> encourage everybody to share their thoughts. At the same it would be great
>> if we could keep the discussion on meta so that we have everything in one
>> place.
>>
>> All the Best,
>>
>> Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
>>
>> Pavel Richter
>> Vorstand
>>
>> Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
>> Tel.: +49 - 30 - 219 158 260
>> Twitter: @pavel
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>>
>
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?

[Nathan]

On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 12:07 PM, Nathan  wrote:

> One thing that hasn't come up in the debate is the relative importance of
> Wikimedia's approach to video, given the existing video ecosystem. YouTube
> enables cc-by uploading and has 4 million videos with a free license, and
> 6.5 million videos that are explicitly educational. Are we sure focusing on
> our own base of uploaded videos is the approach best calibrated to serving
> Wikimedia's mission?
>

Actually it did come up, allow me to reproduce the comment in a vote posted
by Brad Patrick (former WMF general counsel):

I agree that the dominant file format means we need to be able to
comprehend what is ingested. But it is not okay to ingest and spew using
that file format if it means we are putting on someone else's intellectual
property yoke. Commons' great benefit to the world is no-questions-asked
reusability, and I don't want to see it compromised in this fashion,
license freebie or otherwise. I'm with User:David
Gerard
 on this. On the whole it is of far less importance to me as there is no
guiding principal or idea that WMF is intended to be an *exclusive*
repository of anything. Others do nothing but video, and that's great. I
want there to be video, *but it is not part of a grant vision to
out-YouTube YouTube, or Vimeo, or any other huge site with billions of
hours of video*. User:Fuzheado
 is right - we lack the present toolset to be able to address such volumes
of video, and I'm not sure that's a bad
thing.--BradPatrick
 (talk ) 14:45,
16 January 2014 (UTC)

Emphasis is mine. I'm sure smart people have debated this before, can
anyone point me to it?
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?

[Nathan]

One thing that hasn't come up in the debate is the relative importance of
Wikimedia's approach to video, given the existing video ecosystem. YouTube
enables cc-by uploading and has 4 million videos with a free license, and
6.5 million videos that are explicitly educational. Are we sure focusing on
our own base of uploaded videos is the approach best calibrated to serving
Wikimedia's mission?
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?

[Bjoern Hoehrmann]

* Andrew Lih wrote:
>BTW, Luis from WMF has put a very lengthy and detailed analysis of the
>legal issues that does help quite a bit, at the end of the RFC:
>
>https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comment/MP4_Video#Commercial_use_and_h264

I note that the Wikimedia Foundation does not really have to obtain a
license to use H.264 encoders and decoders, users could do the format
conversions elsewhere and the Wikimedia Foundation could then "merely
distribute" the files. As the RfC notes, "Merely distributing MP4 files
never requires a patent license." That would spare us problems like the
"secret contract" issue.

Why does the proposal, instead, suggest the Foundation should engage in
the practise of, not just mere distribution, but Internet Broadcasting?
That apparently requires a patent license. For that matter, would users
who download video automatically obtain Internet Re-Broadcasting rights?

I do note that according to MPEG LA there are only about 1300 entities
with relevant license agreements, if putting a H.264 video on my web
site whether people can download it is Internet Broadcasting and I do
not obtain an Internet Broadcasting license by pressing the "record"
button on my camera, or some other automatic process, then that figure
is several orders of magnitude too small, or patent holders tolerate a
lot of infringement (for the moment).

Would it really make sense to label video files as freely shareable if
forms of sharing like "Internet Broadcasting" need additional licenses?
-- 
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
Am Badedeich 7 · Telefon: +49(0)160/4415681 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
25899 Dagebüll · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/ 

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

[David Gerard]

A pile of press is linked at the top of the talk page.


- d.

On 17 January 2014 16:43, Nathan  wrote:
> There's an article about the debate up from yesterday on Ars:
> http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/wikimedia-considers-supporting-h-264-to-boost-accessibility-content/
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?

[Nathan]

There's an article about the debate up from yesterday on Ars:
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/wikimedia-considers-supporting-h-264-to-boost-accessibility-content/
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?

[The Cunctator]

He wasn't assuming bad faith; he was accurately describing the situation
without ascribing intent.
On Jan 16, 2014 7:36 AM, "Andrew Lih"  wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 9:14 AM, Todd Allen  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
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?

[The Cunctator]

Given that allowing mp4 would be an act of commercial expedience at the
expense of core Wikipedia principles, let me make the modest suggestion of
introducing mp4 in concert with a name change to Encarta.
On Jan 16, 2014 5:15 AM, "Andrew Lih"  wrote:

> Great post Manuel, and I wholeheartedly agree, including the final
> recommendation. I, instead, voted for full MP4 support on the RfC to draw
> the center of gravity towards accepting MP4, but I would be happy even with
> a partial solution.
>
> Some points:
>
> 1. The video project in English Wikipedia is:
> [[Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wiki_Makes_Video]] We certainly welcome more than
> just English Wikipedians there! We've had several university classes use
> this, and I think a pretty good set of example videos and guidelines
> including many videos shot by journalism and media studies students:
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wiki_Makes_Video
>
> 2. I talked recently with the Mozilla Popcorn folks, and they seem to have
> the best OSS, online video editing system today with Popcorn Maker. You can
> actually paste in URLs of Commons video and start splicing them together.
> Just make sure to use an Ogg/WebM friendly browser. I encourage you to try
> it out.
>
> https://popcorn.webmaker.org/
>
> They said they would be thrilled if Popcorn became part of the editing
> solution for Wikimedia. One problem is that they right now only manage an
> EDL of edits, so embedding an edited video together requires an online
> Javascript environment -- there is no provision for re-compressing and
> outputting the video to a standalone Ogg or WebM file. But this is OSS so
> adding this functionality should be possible with the right resources.
>
> 3. Perhaps we should do several sessions at Wikimedia in succession,
> including a workshop on how to shoot and make video? I teach video shooting
> and editing to students each year, so this would be quite an easy thing for
> me to pitch in on.
>
> -Andrew
>
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 16, 2014 at 6:54 AM, Manuel Schneider <
> manuel.schnei...@wikimedia.ch> wrote:
>
> > Hi Fabrice,
> >
> > interesting question!
> >
> > I'd like to remind of a discussion we had at last year's Wikimania in
> > Hong Kong concerning tools for the video community.
> >
> > Yet we do not really have a video community but scattered small groups
> > or individuals doing some work. I try to coordinate this in the
> > german-speaking world and we do this via Wikipedia, then there are
> > people in the Czech Republic doing videos on national parks, Andrew did
> > some great stuff in the US, there is a british initiative as well. We
> > all face similar challenges. One things - which is off-topic here - is
> > that I have in mind to connect these groups to an internationl video
> > community, maybe by having a WikiVideo (or whatever the name might be)
> > project.
> >
> > But back to the RfC: One of the challenges is that we need a solution for
> >
> > * storing the raw video material allowing people to re-use, re-edit
> > etc., also most volunteers don't have the storage capacity to store all
> > their raw material
> >
> > * collaborative editing - hard to do technically and it mostly implies
> > that raw material is being shared - hard for people that can meet each
> > other as these files are big, fast storage is needed etc. and it is even
> > harder for people working online
> >
> > * upload of high-quality, finished video projects is a pain. They mostly
> > have more than 1 GB, you need to have another server to upload and share
> > it, make a bug report, find a server admin who downloads and imports it
> > etc.
> >
> > My idea which we talked about briefly at Wikimania was a server where
> > people could upload there raw material, it gets transcoded into smaller
> > "proxy clips" everyone can easily download, edit and then upload the EDL
> > (edit decision list = video editing project file, which just holds the
> > operations). The server would then use the EDL on the raw material
> > stored there and render the final video. The upload process can then be
> > automated between this server and Commons.
> >
> > The reason this idea was dismissed is the core of this RfC: patent
> > trolling etc. on H.264 codecs etc. which we would need to allow as raw
> > material.
> >
> > So my take on this topic is a compromise:
> >
> > * allow MP4 / H.264 as a source codec
> >
> > * deliver everything in WebM / Ogg Theora (or other free codecs)
> >
> > Especially with WebM I see no reason why people really need H.264. Ogg
> > Theora is somewhat exotic but WebM isn't.
> > And once we have solved the legal problem around this RfC nothing is
> > stoping us to implement the video editing server, right?
> >
> >
> > /Manuel
> > --
> > Wikimedia CH - Verein zur Förderung Freien Wissens
> > Lausanne, +41 (21) 34066-22 - www.wikimedia.ch
> >
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> > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> >

[Wikimedia-l] This weird trick will make readers of mass messages on village pumps happier

[Amir E. Aharoni]

Got your attention? :)

Various mass messages are occasionally sent to village pumps in many
projects - by the Foundation's community liaisons, by researchers, and
others.

Sometimes people bother to put them up for translation, which is wonderful,
but sometimes it is not practical, for example if the message is urgent.

Even if the message is in English, however, you need to do a little thing
to make sure that it will be comfortable to read it in a non-English wiki.
Put it inside the following HTML tag:

Your important notification.


This will ensure that the message is considered as English and
left-to-right. If you don't do this, then in right-to-left wikis it will
look like this paragraph - misaligned and with incorrectly placed
punctuation.

Of course, it's not great to have to remember to write it every time, so if
there is a way to automate in MassMessage or EdwardsBot or whatever is used
to send these messages, it would be great.

--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
‪“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?

[Andrew Lih]

BTW, Luis from WMF has put a very lengthy and detailed analysis of the
legal issues that does help quite a bit, at the end of the RFC:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comment/MP4_Video#Commercial_use_and_h264

TLDR:

"…there may be good moral, ethical, and strategic reasons to oppose or
support this plan. However, in my opinion, non-commercial restrictions on
the use of particular h264-based devices, or their interactions with
Creative Commons, are not good reasons to oppose it" -LVilla
(WMF)
(talk ) 05:06,
17 January 2014 (UTC)






On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 11:02 AM, Chad Horohoe wrote:

> On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 7:55 AM, Strainu  wrote:
>
> > 2014/1/16 Andrew Lih :
> > > As much as I am pushing for MP4 adoption in Wikimedia to help our
> lagging
> > > video efforts, MPEG-4 patent holders/licensors are not helping their
> > case:
> > > [snip]
> >
> > I worry more about the "no, because that would mean more video content
> > uploaded to commons" votes (see Rilke, Turelio). I find it disturbing
> > that we got to a point were we basically *refuse* new contributions.
> >
>
> Me too. Anytime I see a "but it will enable bad contributions" argument for
> reasons not to do things I get a little sad. Every well-meaning
> contribution
> should be valued, IMHO.
>
> -Chad
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>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?

[Chad Horohoe]

On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 7:55 AM, Strainu  wrote:

> 2014/1/16 Andrew Lih :
> > As much as I am pushing for MP4 adoption in Wikimedia to help our lagging
> > video efforts, MPEG-4 patent holders/licensors are not helping their
> case:
> > [snip]
>
> I worry more about the "no, because that would mean more video content
> uploaded to commons" votes (see Rilke, Turelio). I find it disturbing
> that we got to a point were we basically *refuse* new contributions.
>

Me too. Anytime I see a "but it will enable bad contributions" argument for
reasons not to do things I get a little sad. Every well-meaning contribution
should be valued, IMHO.

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

[Strainu]

2014/1/16 Andrew Lih :
> As much as I am pushing for MP4 adoption in Wikimedia to help our lagging
> video efforts, MPEG-4 patent holders/licensors are not helping their case:
> [snip]

I worry more about the "no, because that would mean more video content
uploaded to commons" votes (see Rilke, Turelio). I find it disturbing
that we got to a point were we basically *refuse* new contributions.

Strainu

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

[David Gerard]

On 17 January 2014 15:03, Ted Chien  wrote:

> From my knowledge when I was working as an engineer in the multimedia
> software company back in 2006, if there's no transcoding to MP* formats, no
> patent fee is required. So if you upload MP4 files then download them
> without any transcoding it should be fine (correct me if I'm wrong). We'd
> only been charged by MPEG LA for encoding the MPEG-4 video at that time.



So we'd be fine transcoding *from* MPEG4?


- d.

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

[Ted Chien]

From my knowledge when I was working as an engineer in the multimedia
software company back in 2006, if there's no transcoding to MP* formats, no
patent fee is required. So if you upload MP4 files then download them
without any transcoding it should be fine (correct me if I'm wrong). We'd
only been charged by MPEG LA for encoding the MPEG-4 video at that time.

Personally I would support to include MP4 in Wikimedia projects if no
patent fee is required, since it's already widely used in user's daily
life.

Regards,
Ted Chien
-- Sent from my HTC New One
2014/1/17 下午10:16 於 "Todd Allen"  寫道：

> On Jan 16, 2014 11:05 PM, "Tim Starling"  wrote:
> >
> > On 17/01/14 01:14, Todd Allen wrote:
> > > 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).
> >
> > I don't really understand this argument. It's not like there are video
> > cameras that record directly to Theora. So presumably, most videos
> > uploaded to Commons start life as H.264 or some other proprietary
> > format, and are transcoded to Theora before they are uploaded to Commons.
> >
> > The proposal is to make it possible to upload the source file and have
> > the server do the transcode, whereas currently, the source file is
> > private and thus not distributed under a free license. Currently, if
> > you want to reuse an H.264 source file, you have to somehow contact
> > the author, beg for a copy of the file, and hope that they haven't
> > deleted it. With this proposal, if you want to reuse an H.264 file
> > without a patent license, you can just download the Theora transcode
> > from the server.
> >
> > I am having trouble thinking of a scenario where the current situation
> > would be better for reuse than the proposed situation. If you can
> > think of one, please tell me.
> >
> > -- Tim Starling
> >
> >
> > ___
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> > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> 
>
> If the server does the transcode and ultimately makes available only a
> video file in a free format, and WMF doesn't have to pay the patent holders
> to make that happen, then I would have no objection.
>
> If, however, the nonfree format is made available for download, or WMF
> funds would be supporting a software patent, those are clear negatives.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?

[Fajro]

On Fri, Jan 17, 2014 at 11:24 AM, David Gerard  wrote:

> On 17 January 2014 14:19, Fajro  wrote:
>
> Do you have the precise wording handy? e.g. What constitutes promotion?


From Wikimedia Argentina bylaws:

> *The Association's goals are:*
> To actively contribute to the diffusion, improvement and progress of the
> knowledge and culture through the development and distribution of
> encyclopedias, collections of quotes, educational books and other document
> compilations; the diffusion of information and diverse data bases,
> especially in the languages spoken in the Argentine territory, which:
>
>1. are available through technologies as Internet or similar, provided
>that: (a) the source of the data is available (for works resulting from the
>compilation or processing of other works), (b) are given in a freely
>available format (defined as those that can be implemented by anyone, are
>based in publicly available and documented specifications, and whose
>implementation or use does not require the payment of any royalties), and
>the availability of the work is not restricted by technical measures.
>
>
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Argentina/Bylaws
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Chile/Bylaws
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Uruguay/Bylaws/en
http://wikimedia.org.ve/wiki/Estatutos_sociales_de_Wikimedia_Venezuela (in
spanish)
-- 
Fajro
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?

[David Gerard]

On 17 January 2014 14:19, Fajro  wrote:

> FYI it's against the bylaws of at least 4 chapters (Argentina, Chile,
> Uruguay and Venezuela) to promote content in non-free formats.



Do you have the precise wording handy? e.g. What constitutes promotion?


- d.

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

[Fajro]

FYI it's against the bylaws of at least 4 chapters (Argentina, Chile,
Uruguay and Venezuela) to promote content in non-free formats.

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

[Todd Allen]

On Jan 16, 2014 11:05 PM, "Tim Starling"  wrote:
>
> On 17/01/14 01:14, Todd Allen wrote:
> > 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).
>
> I don't really understand this argument. It's not like there are video
> cameras that record directly to Theora. So presumably, most videos
> uploaded to Commons start life as H.264 or some other proprietary
> format, and are transcoded to Theora before they are uploaded to Commons.
>
> The proposal is to make it possible to upload the source file and have
> the server do the transcode, whereas currently, the source file is
> private and thus not distributed under a free license. Currently, if
> you want to reuse an H.264 source file, you have to somehow contact
> the author, beg for a copy of the file, and hope that they haven't
> deleted it. With this proposal, if you want to reuse an H.264 file
> without a patent license, you can just download the Theora transcode
> from the server.
>
> I am having trouble thinking of a scenario where the current situation
> would be better for reuse than the proposed situation. If you can
> think of one, please tell me.
>
> -- Tim Starling
>
>
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> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,


If the server does the transcode and ultimately makes available only a
video file in a free format, and WMF doesn't have to pay the patent holders
to make that happen, then I would have no objection.

If, however, the nonfree format is made available for download, or WMF
funds would be supporting a software patent, those are clear negatives.
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?

[Gerard Meijssen]

Hoi,
I am happy for people to upload files when we can convert it to another
format. Given that the issue is around the ability to re-use media files in
the H.264 format, providing these files to our users is exactly the issue
that is being discussed. Consequently it is controversial.
Thanks,
  GerardM


On 17 January 2014 14:18, Bjoern Hoehrmann  wrote:

> * Tim Starling wrote:
> >On 17/01/14 01:14, Todd Allen wrote:
> >> 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).
> >
> >I don't really understand this argument. It's not like there are video
> >cameras that record directly to Theora. So presumably, most videos
> >uploaded to Commons start life as H.264 or some other proprietary
> >format, and are transcoded to Theora before they are uploaded to Commons.
> >
> >The proposal is to make it possible to upload the source file and have
> >the server do the transcode, whereas currently, the source file is
> >private and thus not distributed under a free license. Currently, if
> >you want to reuse an H.264 source file, you have to somehow contact
> >the author, beg for a copy of the file, and hope that they haven't
> >deleted it. With this proposal, if you want to reuse an H.264 file
> >without a patent license, you can just download the Theora transcode
> >from the server.
> >
> >I am having trouble thinking of a scenario where the current situation
> >would be better for reuse than the proposed situation. If you can
> >think of one, please tell me.
>
> It seems to me that we all agree it would be nice if people could upload
> H.264 video to Wikimedia Foundation servers and if people could download
> H.264 video from Wikimedia servers and possibly even reuse such video.
> There are efforts underway to try and make some H.264 profile available
> on a royality-free basis that the Foundation probably should study and
> possibly support. This RFC however is not going to give people a license
> to upload or reuse H.264 video by the looks of it. The "download Theora"
> approach is already supported, so there is no difference there either.
>
> If there is some legal theory by which "most people" either already have
> or do not need to be given a license to upload or reuse H.264 video (in-
> cluding considerations with respect to how such video came to be) then
> by all means make that part of the RfC and then we could say whether the
> proposal would actually improve anything.
> --
> Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
> Am Badedeich 7 · Telefon: +49(0)160/4415681 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
> 25899 Dagebüll · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] RfC: Should we support MP4 Video on our sites?

[Bjoern Hoehrmann]

* Tim Starling wrote:
>On 17/01/14 01:14, Todd Allen wrote:
>> 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). 
>
>I don't really understand this argument. It's not like there are video
>cameras that record directly to Theora. So presumably, most videos
>uploaded to Commons start life as H.264 or some other proprietary
>format, and are transcoded to Theora before they are uploaded to Commons.
>
>The proposal is to make it possible to upload the source file and have
>the server do the transcode, whereas currently, the source file is
>private and thus not distributed under a free license. Currently, if
>you want to reuse an H.264 source file, you have to somehow contact
>the author, beg for a copy of the file, and hope that they haven't
>deleted it. With this proposal, if you want to reuse an H.264 file
>without a patent license, you can just download the Theora transcode
>from the server.
>
>I am having trouble thinking of a scenario where the current situation
>would be better for reuse than the proposed situation. If you can
>think of one, please tell me.

It seems to me that we all agree it would be nice if people could upload
H.264 video to Wikimedia Foundation servers and if people could download
H.264 video from Wikimedia servers and possibly even reuse such video.
There are efforts underway to try and make some H.264 profile available
on a royality-free basis that the Foundation probably should study and
possibly support. This RFC however is not going to give people a license
to upload or reuse H.264 video by the looks of it. The "download Theora"
approach is already supported, so there is no difference there either.

If there is some legal theory by which "most people" either already have
or do not need to be given a license to upload or reuse H.264 video (in-
cluding considerations with respect to how such video came to be) then
by all means make that part of the RfC and then we could say whether the
proposal would actually improve anything.
-- 
Björn Höhrmann · mailto:bjo...@hoehrmann.de · http://bjoern.hoehrmann.de
Am Badedeich 7 · Telefon: +49(0)160/4415681 · http://www.bjoernsworld.de
25899 Dagebüll · PGP Pub. KeyID: 0xA4357E78 · http://www.websitedev.de/ 

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