I tend to agree with this. I'm one of the first to criticize WMF when they
deserve it (I wish they didn't as often!), but I see nothing wrong with
consumers of huge amounts of data being asked to chip in to cover the costs
of providing it. That is, of course, provided that there is never any fee
for use of the API for users of data in regular amounts, but every plan
I've seen thus far accommodates that.
Todd
On Thu, Jul 9, 2020 at 7:15 AM Ad Huikeshoven <a...@huikeshoven.org> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Great news: the WMF is going to charge the tech giants for using the API
> millions of times each day. Nothing in the free licenses we use obligate us
> (that is we in our movement) to provide an API for free as in beer. It is
> part of KAAS: Knowledge As A Service, part of the strategic direction
> chosen in 2017.
>
> Thanks for your understanding,
>
> Ad Huikeshoven
>
> On Sun, Jun 14, 2020 at 8:33 PM Amir Sarabadani <ladsgr...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Hello,
> > Today I stumbled upon this public phabricator ticket [1] created by
> someone
> > from WMF starting with:
> > "My team is creating bi-weekly HTML Dumps for all of the wikis, except
> for
> > wikidata as part of the paid API project."
> >
> > I have so many questions:
> > - What is the "paid API" project? Are we planning to make money out of
> our
> > API? Now are we selling our dumps?
> > - If so, why is this not communicated before? Why are we kept in the
> dark?
> > - Does the board know and approve it?
> > - How is this going to align with our core values like openness and
> > transparency?
> > - The ticket implicitly says these are going to be stored on AWS ("S3
> > bucket"). Is this thought through? Specially the ethical problems of
> > feeding Jeff Bezos' empire? (If you have seen this episode of Hasan
> > Minhaj's on ethical issues of using AWS [2]). Why can't we do/host this
> on
> > Wikimedia infrastructure? Has this been evaluated?
> > - Why is the community not consulted about this?
> >
> > Maybe I missed announcements, consultations or anything, forgive me for
> my
> > ignorance. Any pointers is enough. I also understand diversifying our
> > revenue is a good tool for rainy days but a consultation with the
> community
> > wouldn't be too bad.
> >
> > [1]: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T254275
> > [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5maXvZ5fyQY
> >
> > Best
> > --
> > Amir (he/him)
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