[Wikipedia-l] Openness is a means to an end. Nothing more

Fri Dec 2 02:45:33 UTC 2005

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-- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> I strongly disagree with that---that may be your goal (and perhaps 
> Jimbo's), but a goal of a lot of people here is to create a Free (as in 
> Freedom) encyclopedia as the primary end.  The fact that this increases 
> its availability is quite nice, but the Freedom aspect is not merely a 
> means to the end of increasing availability, but the end itself.  

You say that, but then you explain why that is so in terms of increasing use and availability
(bringing us back into means-to-an end territory). Also, freedom to use Wikipedia would be
pointless if its quality was so bad that nobody would bother. 

I'm here to create something that people will find useful. If it ain't useful, then who cares if
it is free? Wikipedia's free qualities are very, very important to be sure. But that aspect is
only part of the picture. 

For me 
> at least, and I suspect at least some number of other people, this is 
> the *only* end---to produce a completely Free encyclopedia, which 
> everyone is then free to use as they wish, save that they may not 
> restrict others' right to do the same with their derived works.  This 
> then allows any third party to fulfill whatever end they have in mind, 
> including disseminating it to every person on earth, editing it into 
> other works, producing WikiReaders, producing travel guides, using it as 
> source material for literary works, or whatever else.

The value of freedom is in its use. The fact that Wikipedia is free makes it much more useful. One
reason I contribute is that I know my contributions will be kept free; again, that is a means to
an end (getting people like me and you to add content and discourage viable forks by making it
possible to easily incorporate any changes to the forked version). 

-- mav

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