On 23/08/06, Michael R. Irwin <michael_irwin(a)verizon.net> wrote:
I have a query into WikiCommons but I could not find
any definitive
procedure or policy regarding which file formats are accepted there and
which are not.
All content on the Wikimedia Commons - with the exception of some
images that are used as logos for the Wikimedia Foundation, and are
therefore copyrighted, trademarked, etc. - needs to be under a free
licence.
I believe the Commons people prefer open-licenced formats. I know that
most projects don't have proprietary format uploads enabled unless
they are internal wikis.
I did find a procedure citing a free tool to convert
some video file
formats into ogg vorbis so perhaps that is a current answer. I have no
experience with accessing ogg vorbis from the middle of html or media
wiki renderer. Does anyone know if it works well with translated files?
At present, MediaWiki fulfils 50% of the name; support for a lot of
media files is quite crap, to be frank about it. Static images work
fine, and there's recent support for rendering stuff like DjVu files
inline and making nice previews, etc. but things like audio and video
aren't supported as well as we'd all like.
There is, however, an active effort to improve the situation. One of
our two Summer of Code developers is working on embedding and handling
media and using free plugins to "make it all work nice", for want of a
better term. I'm not quite sure how far progressed it is, but with
luck, it won't take forever to complete.
Does anyone have strong feelings one way or another
regarding what kind
of files we should be accepting? I know some at Wikipedia felt
strongly a while back that all materials served should be free formats
accessible by free tools.
I suggest that we continue to advocate the use of open file formats to
allow reuse of the material we publish by as many people as possible.
For example all of my (mine as in I was the producer
and own all rights)
animation clips are currently in avi or FLC. If clear directions exist
on how to convert these files to a preferred format then I will do so.
If it is still vague territory suited best for linux gurus then I will
probably forego the pleasure.
To take the techie's first response; tried Googling? I believe it's
quite possible to convert AVI files to Ogg Theora format, although
I've never done it, having stuck with converting a few sound clips
from time to time. I suspect there must be one or two freeware
(perhaps not free-licenced, but no-one cares *how*) applications
available which will help, and the codecs themselves are, of course,
free.
Perhaps this thread is a symptom of the bigger issue that we're all
(hopefully) thinking, but maybe not ballsy enough to admit; is
MediaWiki alone good enough for our purposes? I'm of the mindset that
we are going to want expanded features which aren't part of the core
code, although I can't think of a good example at this precise second.
Since MediaWiki's primary development audience is Wikimedia projects,
having fairly broad changes implemented won't be an issue, and having
highly specific things implemented can be done via extensions. The
question is, am I right in thinking we *will* want to be able to do X,
Y and Z that we can't right now, and if so, what *are* X, Y and Z?
Determining the latter might prove difficult. We don't know quite how
someone wishes to learn something until that time comes; various
different learning methods suit various different learning materials,
teachers and their students.
Rob Church