Resolution talk:Wikimedia Foundation Guiding Principles/Archive 1

Freedom and open source

"As an organization, we strive to use open source tools over proprietary ones, although we use proprietary or closed tools (such as software, operating systems, etc.) where there is currently no open-source tool that will effectively meet our needs." - Is there a requirement and process in place which forces people to publish an evaluation which open-source tools were considered and tested for a task in order to identify which specific functionality was only provided by closed-source tools? --AKlapper (WMF) (talk) 18:08, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, maybe that is my impression because I work remotely, but I've seen some proprietary files been shared and proprietary softwares being used when we could have free software. For instance, microsoft documents or apple softwares. And I've heard the wifi network in SF office works better with apple stuff, which is kind of weird - I've visited SF office only once and I checked that, but I've heard the same from other online meetings. For pragmatical reasons, sometimes I know using some closed softwares can deliver things faster tho. --Ezalvarenga (talk) 19:37, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree we could use a little more discipline on this. e.g. I'm not convinced all Mac users in the office would truly be significantly less effective at their work on Ubuntu machines. I do acknowledge some may be. I think it warrants some nudging/pushing, though. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 20:28, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

I think there's a huge distinction between closed source tools for personal productivity, and closed source tools for supporting the projects. This should be clarified in the text of the principles, because the current state of affairs is that we require FOSS when it comes to what is actually necessary for the projects to run, and we obviously don't when it comes to the office IT. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 22:42, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Quick suggestion...

[1], which I made before seeing the request to comment first. Anyway, "serving every human being" seems a bit disingenuous, since we really aim to serve every literate human being with access to data and a digital device. ;-) The goal of providing equal access to all seems fairer, and more in line the the section's comments about well, accessibility. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 00:26, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

"equal access to all" is, er, equally disingenuous, as, by your own phrase, we're providing equal access only to "every literate human being with access to data and a digital device".

Furthermore, I actually do think we strive to serve every human being. Remember the free knowledge the Wikimedia community creates and shares is consumed offline too, not to mention the huge value of secondary use -- the knowledge worked into presentations, newspapers, books, radio and TV programs -- all consumed by hundreds of millions more than the group consuming it directly from our Web sites. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 00:50, 20 March 2013 (UTC)