On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 1:59 AM, Ray Saintonge <sainto...@telus.net> wrote:
> Just how much control do you expect from the Central Committee? Sure, > it's a given that some will-intentioned initiatives will go dreadfully > awry. Bad things have happened in the past, and bad things will happen > in the future; None of it will be prevented by imposing strict central > control. Wikimedia is a resilient organisation, and it didn't get that > way through paranoid musings about a tarnished reputation. It's not > that fragile. > My primary concern is that all the potential ramifications of such actions be properly considered - the income is irrelevant in the context of the WMF budget and yet the risk could be extreme. For example, deriving revenue directly from the content could cause problems for fair use[1], let alone the prospect of users uploading copyrighted or otherwise restricted (eg trademarked) content. Another liability to consider relates to problems with delivery. Normally such convenience services include strong disclaimers of warranty and liability but checking one of my contributions[2] shows offers to 'Choisissez un imprimeur *accrédité*'. By referring to these vendors as 'accredited' we are stating that they are officially approved and raising many questions about the accreditation process itself. Don't get me wrong - I'm all for this type of innovation and where better for it to come from than the chapters, but we also need to exercise caution. Sam 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#Fair_use_under_United_States_laws 2. http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:CloudComputingStackLarge.svg 3. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/accredited _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
