[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Commons: Service project or not?

Tue Jun 16 18:05:58 UTC 2009

On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 1:56 PM, Geoffrey Plourde <geo.plrd at yahoo.com>wrote:

> Commons is an oddball project. Other projects produce work, but Commons
> stores it. Wikisource could be considered another oddball for the same
> reason. At this point in time, I would class Commons as a service project
> (and wikisource as well) because it provides a service to other projects and
> its only point is to provide a service to other projects.

By "other projects", do you mean "other Wikimedia projects"?  And how are
you determining what "its only point" is?

All Wikimedia projects are service projects in a sense.

Unfortunately, I can not fathom any reason that Commons should be or is a
> independent project in its own right. It would be like making all the filing
> cabinets in an office their own division.

Most cabinet makers are independent from the office where those cabinets are
used.

I really don't see the dichotomy between independence and service.