[Foundation-l] Report to the Board (March)

Tue Apr 15 22:51:09 UTC 2008

Sebastian Moleski wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 4:09 PM, mike.lifeguard <mike.lifeguard at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> The last time I mentioned this, I was pointed toward localization of
>> MediaWiki as one way we're doing this... I don't see how localizing a
>> website reaches beyond the internet. To be fair, there have been efforts
>> in
>> the past to actually go beyond the internet:
>> *I think we had some partnership with OLPC [2] at some point; that might
>> have been Wikibooks-specific [3] (and it might be simply a free
>> association
>> of volunteers with nothing higher-level happening)
>> *There are other groups who print (on paper/CDs/DVDs) Wikipedia content,
>> but
>> are not involved with us, so far as I know
>>
> 
> The Wikipedia CD and DVD published in Germany as well as the WikiPress books
> were produced in cooperation with Wikimedia Deutschland. There are also
> initiatives under way to expand on the offline distribution of Wikipedia
> content. I would expect some more information as soon as commercial
> negotiations are finished.
> 
> Sebastian

Absolutely.

I will also mention that in April 17, 2007 the Wikimedia Foundation and 
Linterweb announced the release of Wikipedia Version 0.5, a compact disc 
collection of approximately 2,000 articles from the English Wikipedia. 
The project paves the way for many such collections, with larger 
releases planned in a variety of languages.

Wikimedia France was at the forefront of bringing the CD collection to 
fruition, and securing the deal with Linterweb, a French technology 
company. In the future, Wikimedia France also aims to produce a French 
language CD through Linterweb. The French/English collaboration has 
proved very successful, and the two groups continue to share ideas and 
resources.

Please see further details at:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Version_.5

Ant