Wikimania 2006: Open Access and Online Communities
Filipino Librarian writes “Michael Eisen, who helped found the Public Library of Science, traced the development of ‘Open academic publishing,’ while Jenny Preece, dean of the College of Information Studies, University of Maryland, discussed ‘Community, Social Interaction and Wikipedia.’ Photos and more…”
Wikimania 2006: Reference Work Publishing
Filipino Librarian writes “What are representatives of publishers of ‘dead-trees encyclopedias’ doing at a conference that is known for its Wikipedia connection? The panelists, from left, are: John Dove, CEO of xrefer, which aggregates hundreds of encyclopedias and other publications; Erin McKean, editor-in-chief of U.S. dictionaries for Oxford University Press; and Paul Gazzolo, president of World Book. Photo and more…”
Using free and open formats for broadcasting?
In the past Jimmy “Jimbo” Wales has been quite vocal about using exclusively free and open codecs for Wikipedia. One would think that this extends to media storage and broadcast as well: The previous Wikimania was broadcast online in Ogg Theora+Vorbis (a free and open video and audio codec playable on all platforms through a variety of players including VideoLAN Client, Totem, Helix Player, mplayer, and Xine). The recordings were archived in this format as well. One could play these files without bumping into patent encumberances or using proprietary software.
Not so today; Wikimania ’06 is apparently going to be broadcast exclusively in RealMedia, a proprietary format playable only with proprietary software (which, as a lesser point, doesn’t run on all operating systems). Regardless of which front-end one uses (mplayer, “Real Alternative”, etc.) one cannot escape installing and running proprietary software to see this conference which purports to be about “provid[ing] an opportunity for Wikimedians and the general public alike to meet and share ideas about free and open source software” at least in part.
Apparently sharing ideas about FLOSS requires using proprietary software. This might not be a big deal for the Open Source movement which isn’t terribly critical of proprietary software, but for the Free Software movement this is remarkable.
What happened in the intervening year? Is Wikipedia giving up on using exclusively free and open codecs and formats?