There aren't two principles in conflict here. Rather, there is a proposed very major shift in mission and method. Right now, when we say Wikimedia content is "free", we mean free to fork, reuse, use however the viewer sees fit.
We support that objective with freely licensed content stored in free and unencumbered formats. We support educational content on our sites so long as it is free. Those principles are dual requirements. They are additive, not conflicting. To be acceptable for a Wikimedia project, content must be both within that project's educational scope and be free. If it is one but not the other, we cannot accept it. 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. Liam said: Or better yet... elaborate on your reasons on the RfC page. https://commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Requests_for_comment/MP4_Video I think it is commendable that the WMF legal team is proposing this discussion in such an open and honest way. It is a discussion that has been bubbling away for a long time and it is perfectly sensible that we should address it formally every now and then. Even if we come up with the same answer it is important to revisit major policy decisions periodically in case the situation has changed. I think we can all acknowledge that this particular issue is a good example of where two of our deeply held principles are somewhat conflicting. On the one hand we hold firm to the idea that our purpose is to share information as widely as possible, and on the other we also are very committed to the principles of open source. These are both real, valid, principles and it is important that we look at the ways that we can balance the competing choices that these principles force upon us without pre-judging the outcome. - Liam / Wittylama On 16 January 2014 14:28, Brandon Harris <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Jan 15, 2014, at 7:25 PM, Fajro <[email protected]> wrote: > > > No. > > I think you should probably include a reason why you feel this > way. A one-word answer doesn’t leave room for conversation. > > --- > Brandon Harris, Senior Designer, Wikimedia Foundation > > Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list > [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe>
