how free software makes wikipedia possible
DESCRIPTION
Presentation for Software Freedom Day in Melbourne. In just a handful of years, volunteers around the world have create the largest encyclopedia ever known, Wikipedia. It's still growing today, in literally hundreds of languages, and sister projects to provide other free reference works (such as textbooks) are also thriving. But it would have never been possible without the products of the free software movement, and more importantly, the principles. Find out how these principles have inspired a host of related causes in recent years, and how the core idea of sharing continues to resonate not just in software, but also science, academia and education.TRANSCRIPT
How Free Software
makes Wikipedia
possibleBrianna Laugher,
Wikimedia Australiahttp://www.wikimedia.org.au/
Wikipedia:
1:encyclopedia
2:website
3:not for profit
4:multilingual
5:free (no cost)
6:wiki
7:open content
MediaWiki:
GPLGNUGeneralPublic License
LAMP Linux,Apache, MySQL, PHP
BugzillaIRCMailmanJavaScriptPythonPerl
File formats:
Free knowledge requires free software.If we offer information in a proprietary or patent-encumbered format, then we are not just violating our own commitment to freedom, we are forcing others who want to use our allegedly free knowledge to themselves use proprietary software.Jimmy Wales
1:OpenOffice.org
2:SVG
3:Ogg
Copyright:
GFDLGNU Free Documentation License
Read it
Copy it
Sell it
Change it
But! You must also
Attribute the authors
Pass on thefreedoms
We owe an enormous debt to the GNU project and to the Free Software Foundation, as pioneers and leaders of a movement for
sharing code freely, so that it cannot be used to coerce and restrict users, and so that
it can be improved upon by others.
That idea is one of the key inspirations for Wikipedia itself.
Erik Moeller, Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
Wikimedia Australia is an independent, not-for-profit
organisation, whose primary aim is to promote equality of
opportunity to access and participate in the collaborative
creation of Free Cultural Works, especially educational works, and works about Australia, its culture, natural environment,
and Australian news and media.
contact @ wikimedia.org.au