Rob Church wrote:
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.
Yes. I agree that is an excellent organizing principle we need to treat
as bedrock. I do not see any problem with donating or "freeing" avi
files under the FDL. While I will still have the proprietrary models
used in the Max files to create the animation it is certainly possible
to upload avi files into animation and video editing tools such as Adobe
Premiere or Art of Illustration?? and modify them in various ways at the
frame level.
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.
Ok. Fair enough.
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.
Good to know there is work in progress. Perhaps as Wikiversity develops
its portals and projects we will start to attract an active developer
segment of the population.
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.
Ok fair enough. The precedent of the gif fiasco supports sticking to
open formats as much as possible. It is the transisition from existing
archives that is tricky.
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.
I will give google a shot when I get serious about using some of these
pre-existing animation files in lessons. I have not been active with
multimedia production for several years so most of my experience is very
dated at the moment. At the moment I am checking out preliminary
environmental constraints.
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.
When the participation grows large enough we should be able to establish
requirements defined by existing deficits in the internet environment
detailed enough to inspire developers; unless we stagnate into a top
down mandated culture specified by "not the Wikimedia Foundation" way or
"wiki only welcome here". I anticipate Wikiversity will quickly grow
large enough to help put some further severe pressure on
interoperability requirements of all online software. People who write
free molecular analysis software and interactive nano design editors
would obviously like them used productively but file formats can be a
severe hurdle. Both development groups are likely to receive feedback
from diverse user groups at Wikiversity attempting to work together.
Personally I am tired of enough computing power to run the Apollo
program sitting on my desk and being used for little other text editing
or web browsing ...... and I am not a world class programmer ..... and
while in the past I ran a business that could afford 25K-50K/year for
desktop video processing tools and CAD tools ..... I am not currently so
situated. No doubt others find themselves in a similar situation.
When the participation at Wikiversity is diverse and large some stone
soup projects should emerge. Probably often by Wikiversity Portals
adopting independent projects or acting as virtual user clubs for more
esoteric software tools not of widespread interest to the general public.
When we get a little "free engineering" and other "free expertise"
added
to free software development and free learning and publishing then I
think Wikiversity or the equivalent elsewhere is going wild and wooly
places headed in the direction of a "singularity" even if such a event
as predicted and hoped for by "singularitarians" never actually happens.
A finite elements package or molecular design package in Java embedded
in free online text books to allow widespread free verification of new
scientific findings will go a long way to rocking the
educational/industrial complex's worldview. Matlab, Cosmo,
ProEngineer, Ideas, Autocad, Adobe, 3DSMax, etc. are too expensive and
therefore unavailable for most people. What point in spending a decade
and billions on proving out and patenting kapton for secret use by the
U.S. military in highly overpriced tools of the oldest trade when a
couple of thousand teenagers mentored in a free learning environment by
proven world class scholars can design better material, receive
worldwide assistance in testing or verifying it, and then use proven
models to "free" it to the world so it cannot be monopolized by big
industrial conglomerates all within the context of an international free
learning portal? Suddenly instead of keeping everything secret, at
least until it is patented, and then too expensive for widespread use;
there will be accelerating trends again towards rapid public development
accessible to everybody.
It will start slow but it will integrate to large influences in our
society. Obviously a large restoring force exists in that once people
realize they are doing valuable work many will wish to drop out and
exploit it. Existing society trains us this way. Still once it
becomes obvious big useful things can be accomplished by hordes of
people collaborating over the net the frequency of actual golden eggs
should continue to rise.
User:Roadrunner at Wikiversity has some interesting concepts revolving
around nonprofits and grant funding. Basically he supports small
tailored non-profits that can help sustain individuals drives towards
personal development, credentials, and effective R&D. He sees
multitudes of these interacting with and supporting a broader
Wikiversity concept than we are initializating today.
Thanks for the information regarding current wikimedia practices
concerning file formats.
Regards,
mirwin