[Foundation-l] Re: Ogg Vorbis versus Chinese Wikinews

Mon May 2 07:43:41 UTC 2005

Dovi Jacobs wrote:
> I recently stumbled upon the mailing-list discussion of the Chinese
> Wikinews. When I found the discussion, I couldn't believe what I was
> reading. Is this the Wikimedia Foundation that believes in free
> projects creating free content, "free" as in both "free beer" and
> "free speech"?

I think you're getting actual free speech confused with the paradoxical
terminology used by Richard Stallman to describe software with
restricted rights of use and distribution. Wikimedia supports the latter
but has never supported the former. Rightly or wrongly, Wikimedia
projects have been complicit in censorship of various kinds. I don't
think the discussion of censorship is aided by conflating these two
concepts.

-- Tim Starling