[Foundation-l] Florence's presentation on Wikimania

Sat Aug 11 07:59:38 UTC 2007

Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Erik Moeller wrote:
> 
>> On 8/9/07, Florence Devouard <Anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>  
>>
>>> In my view, WMF has pledged for the creation of free educational
>>> content. It has not pledged to support open and free software.
>>>    
>>>
>> When people can no longer participate in something we do, or when they
>> can no longer access information we provide, because they are running
>> free software, we have failed in our mission. Our mission is not about
>> software, that's true, but it is about spreading knowledge without
>> boundaries, and proprietary tools & formats can and do represent such
>> boundaries.
>>
> The problem is more the other way around.  People have difficulty with 
> free software when they are trying to view it by using propritary 
> software.  They want something that works reliably without needing to 
> investigate the guts of the software.  A simple fix or work-around may 
> come easily to a computer geek, but it could take a free content editor 
> a whole day just to understand a problem that can ultimately be fixed by 
> changing a single letter.

Kat put it very clearly. The issue is "importing" and "exporting", ie, 
communication between the two different types of software. Both are good 
software. However, OpenOffice opens ooo and powerpoint documents. 
However, Powerpoint does not open ooo files.

>> People running free software can usually import XLS, DOC & PPT files,
>> but it's clear that open document standards are critical for the long
>> term preservation of & access to knowledge, which includes information
>> we carry to the outside. Whether you end up running any specific open
>> source solution or not, let's try to at least archive all
>> presentations in an open format.
>>
> Nothing wrong with archiving.  After that it's important that it be 
> usable by all.  Files that are not accessible for technical reasons are 
> not really free.
> 
> Florence did relate the problem of not having PowerPoint software work 
> when she needs to give a speech far away from home.  At home the 
> solution may be as simple as reaching back to a familiar place on the 
> bookshelf, but that option is not available on the road.

My problem is that when I go to give a presentation, hmmm, (example), to 
the Great Library of Alexandria, and they say "we only have powerpoint 
on our computers, and our organization is such that we can not install 
new software, only techs are authorized to do that"... what do I do ?

> 
>> It was a very nice presentation, BTW. :-)
>>  
>>
> Absolutely!
> 
> Ec

thanks :-)

By the way, I uploaded the file
http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:DevouardTaipei2007.pdf

However, I could not add it to the list of proceedings, because no page 
was opened for my talk and the schedule page is protected. Can someone 
had a proceeding page for me so I can link the presentation somewhere ?

THanks

ant