Wikimedia Meta-Wiki

Wikimedians for software freedom

Imagine a world where Free and Open Source Software is the default strategy in the Wikimedia Movement. That's our commitment.

Welcome in the Wikimedians for software freedom User Group.

Join the Wikimedians for software freedom and sustain the right to use, study, modify and share software in the Wikimedia movement, also during official Wikimedia online events and online meetings.

This page is a request for comments (started in 27, July 2022).

Feel free to join and discuss the title of this user group and its goals!

Why edit

We have strong digital barriers inside Wikimedia. We are the cause.

Who donate to Wikimedia Foundation do so because we promise to deliver contents and freedoms. Who donate certainly don't expect their money to be used to enforce digital barriers, remote control or active tracking. Volunteers do not expect to be left out of events because, to participate, they have to execute proprietary software on their smartphone and computer.

These problems happen because the same "popular" technologies someone use in private, the same technology is enforced over Wikimedia volunteers, and this must not acceptable anymore if this technology try to control the users.

From smartphone apps to websites, from file sharing to videocalls, from video platforms to live videos, there are different levels of severity and different levels of action we can do to improve the situation and avoid mistakes.

Official Wikimedia Foundation documents supporting Libre and Open Source edit

Digital barriers and proprietary mass surveillance must be stopped to protect the Wikimedia Movement, Wikimedia events, and protect Wikimedia activists and minorities.

These are all the known official Wikimedia Foundation documents supporting Libre and Open Source:

From the 2030 Movement Strategy:

  • «Censorship, surveillance, and the increased commercialization of knowledge endanger Wikimedia's existence»
  • «the obstacles to participation for underrepresented groups persist»

From the Movement Strategy's Principles:

  • «structures must address for them to be empowered and able to contribute free from barriers»
  • «adopting policies and providing technology, resources, and infrastructures to protect the privacy and security of our Movement participants»
  • «Inclusivity is at the root of the development of processes, practices, and structures for the Wikimedia Movement»
  • «Structures and platforms need to be adaptable to not only empower those who are already in our Movement, but to embrace those yet to join and others who were previously excluded or overlooked»
  • «addressing existing privileges as well as barriers to participation»

From the m:Movement Charter/Content/Values & Principles:

  • We represent a fact-based, open, and inclusive approach to knowledge
  • We share, in the spirit of free knowledge, all of our content, all our software, all our platforms with the world

From the Movement Strategy Recommendations+:[1]

  • «directly address the barriers and circumstances that prevent people from utilizing or participating in our Movement.
  • «Support compliance with the most advanced accessibility guidelines using free and open-source software»

From the Wikimedia Tech Cloud Services Terms of use, point 4.3:

«Do not use, host, or install any software on WMCS unless the software is licensed under an Open Source license»

From the Wikimedia Global Advocacy Team:

«To protect the people in our community, we advocate for privacy rights and against mass surveillance.»

From the Wikimedia Foundation Technology page:

  • «we design and build the open-source technology that powers Wikimedia projects»
https://wikimediafoundation.org/technology/

From the Wikimedia Foundation documentation:

  • «Free and open-source software from Wikimedia»
https://doc.wikimedia.org/

From the Wikimedia Technical blog:

  • «Open Source for open knowledge»
https://techblog.wikimedia.org/

Additional resources edit

Community resources:

High priority concerns edit

This is a non-exhaustive list of high priority concerns that are not compatible against the section #What we want. Possibly with some background, some recent info, and what we can do next to fix the problem.

Thanks for adding new concerns to the top ❤️

Google Suite edit

In Wikimedia, please help us to avoid "Google Meet", "Google Docs", "Google Forms", "Google Calendar", and whatever other proprietary product from Google.

It's not a secret that the Google Suite is in use by Wikimedia Foundation and other parts not only as internal tool but also as primary/default tool to reach community members. This is wrong.

To understand why the Google Suite is a critical issue when it's the primary way to reach the community, explore the section #What we want.

Context
Some Wikimedia Foundation staff teams use intensively the Google Suite for example starting from Google Calendar to plan community meeting etc. and that tool easily promotes Google Meet links; then obtaining documents on Google Docs and surveys on Google Forms etc.; it's not a surprise that every piece is connected to each other and promotes the others. Nobody is surprised to see how is widespread this tool. But, many organizations adopted Free/Libre collaboration platforms and successfully avoided the Google Suite, and Wikimedia Foundations and Wikimedia Chapters deserve that to align their tools with their strategy.
Workarounds
Every staff member can already use something else Open/Libre if they want to reach the community (some teams already avoids proprietary Google products - especially opinionated technical teams when they reach technical volunteers). So this is do-able right now even without any massive migration. If you are already helping in this point, thanks! ❤️
What could be done
  1. The Foundation could share a clear statement that proprietary software cannot be the primary/default tool to reach the Wikimedia community. Or, something like that (see #Official Wikimedia Foundation documents supporting Libre and Open Source).
  2. It would be useful to share how much WMF is investing for the Google Suite every year. Maybe there is also a chance to save money by offering a better product, and not just better data protection.
  3. Long Term Cost factor: Not millions. Probably "just" 1000 USD / month for a professional provider of a complete Free/Libre suite like NextCloud+BigBlueButton or similar well-known Free/Libre solutions widely supported by many independent providers around. The next step is to get quotes from these already-existing nice providers, and compare them. Bonus point: get nice training, get migration support, etc.
Status
  • 2023: the CTO confirmed the situation. No B plan in action.

YouTube edit

YouTube.com has the same problem of the #Google Suite. In addition to that:

  • YouTube does not support the Creative Commons BY-SA License, so, if we don't put explicit credit in the video description, this can be a copyright violation of volunteers' contents shown during the video.
  • YouTube has technical restrictions ("Digital rights management") for example to impede users to download the video, even if it's shared under a Free license. This is again explicitly not compatible with the Creative Commons BY-SA license.

Premising that YouTube may be acceptable to reach new persons that are not generally interested in software freedom; it's a critical problem when YouTube is the only announced tool to host an event. Wikimedians should not become Google customers to join their Movement; and should not execute proprietary Google software to join their Movement.

Read #What we want for further details.

What could be done
  • Verify old YouTube videos so that there is no copyright infringement. If the YouTube video does not explicitly mention CC BY-SA, it may already be a problem.
  • YouTube, if used, should only be used only as a secondary platform. Announcing something else free as primary.
  • In any case, if YouTube cannot be avoided in an event, highlight that YouTube is a proprietary platform and has DRM, to raise awareness, and not to make YouTube seem like a desirable technology partner.
    • After the event is over, upload the video to Wikimedia Commons.
  • Help in finding Free primary platforms. There are many of them. Be bold. For example, PeerTube also supports easy live streams (with peer-2-peer, or also without that). If you are not able to implement it by yourself, get quotes from professional support.

Wikimania online edit

During the pandemic, Wikimania was implemented with some online platforms that left no room at the entrance without using proprietary software. The situation is improving year by year. Thanks 💕

Slack edit

Slack.com is a proprietary chat widely adopted in Wikimedia Foundation staff teams. Fortunately it seems this is mainly an internal issue, since this tool is not used as community contact. But, requiring employees to become a Slack.com customers and run proprietary software in order to join their workplace, is still a problem for the Wikimedia Movement.

To understand why Slack.com is a problem, explore the section #What we want.

Available solutions
  1. Many alternatives :) - insert here a link that better explains what we have around that is Libre and fully-operational to escape from Slack.
  2. for example, Matrix.org that is multi-room, with threads, federated, public/private rooms, strong encryption by default, message reactions, native bridging to IRC, easy bridging with Telegram, modern and fast clients for all platforms, etc. - and libre indeed. Matrix also received millions of donations by the organization behind WordPress. Matrix is already in use by Wikimedia. See Matrix.org.
What to do next
  1. We can maybe clarify who is the administrator of the Slack.com platform in Wikimedia Foundation. Knowing that information could help to discuss other solutions with the part who decided this. Also to get more background.
  2. To be honest the current status and what was tried before today is unclear.

Thanks for sharing info editing this section 💕

Zoom edit

"Zoom" is a proprietary video-conference tool widely adopted in official Wikimedia Foundation conversations with volunteers.

To understand why "Zoom" is a bug in the Wikimedia Movement, read #What we want.

What to do next
  • Even if you require "Zoom" for some reasons (?), we must avoid at all costs the "Zoom" watermark on official Wikimedia video. In no way Zoom should be somehow promoted as Wikimedia technology partner.
  • Nowadays, Zoom can be easily replaced. Lot of organizations has done this step. There are other ethical tools (one random: Jitsi Meeting) that easily support live streams on other platforms with one click. Before complaining that an Open Source solution "doesn't work", it would be optimal to pay for Open Source support and get better support. It's not fair to compare a gratis Open Source random demo, with a paid proprietary service. It's not even fair to try to pull an Open service at home yourself, and compare that with Zoom. Thanks for your help in this direction.

Suggested inspirational readings edit

What we want edit

 
But first of all, we would like to say thank you to the Free Software and to the Open Source movements!
Censorship, surveillance, and the increased commercialization of knowledge endanger Wikimedia's existence
― 2030 Movement Strategy, first page

Here a list of requirements promoted by the Wikimedians for software freedom User group:

Plus an additional list of partially-related things that would be nice as well:

In case of any doubt see the #Glossary.

REQ-FREEDOM edit

Any event or product, adopted or designed or actively supported by Wikimedia Foundation and involving volunteers (e.g. projects meeting, Wikimania, etc.) SHOULD be designed with Free software in mind as primary and default solution, MUST clearly indicate if any part of that tool is proprietary and, anyway, MUST NOT impede, exclude or discriminate who feel unsafe with proprietary software.

Status: not yet received.
Example: Google Meet or Zoom, even if they can be useful in your personal life, and even if you maybe already have a Google account, should not be used to invite Wikimedians: volunteers should never need to execute proprietary software and should not need a Google/XYZ account to join their movement, and should not need to send their data to an oversea company. Moreover, these links are shared everywhere (mailing list, Meta-wiki, ...) and Google or Zoom should not look like a "spammy proprietary Wikimedia sponsor". Please, start specifying right now, under every Google Meet / Zoom, that this is proprietary and that a standard phone call it's possible to join without proprietary software + instructions. Anyway, we think the reasons for not using Jitsi Meeting or BigBlueButton or FLOSS are futile in 2022 so, thank you for just adopting FLOSS and deprecating Google Meet and Zoom, etc.
Legal note: lot of proprietary services have been widely criticized by governments in Europe and other parts of the world, and sometime they are even illegal in Europe.
Example: YouTube can be used but only as a secondary tool, not as default requirement. The primary tool must be a Free software, like PeerTube or whatever does not require proprietary software on end-users.
Example: software executed on-the-fly from websites must be taken in consideration as well. So, a website with proprietary JavaScript like Google Forms cannot be an accepted as primary solution.
Tip: sometime is not needed to find a completely new platform. You can also simply ask the vendor to receive a Freely licensed copy of the software executed on client-side. Often, people's core business is not in having a black-box software, but in having a reliable service, and so they sometime understand our needs. Just try asking.

REQ-DRM edit

Any event designed or actively supported by Wikimedia Foundation must not to require any Digital Restriction Management on Wikimedia contents, as default.

Status: not yet received.
Example: sometime YouTube is useful to share videos destinated to the community, but YouTube cannot be used as default and primary way to do so, since YouTube tries to stop people from downloading copies (even if they are in CC-BY!) and this is a form of DRM. Please, do not rely on YouTube and do not promote YouTube in a way that seems our default platform. Also, please never embed YouTube videos in WMF websites for security reasons (e.g. on Blog Diff)) and remember: Wikimedia Commons is not bad.

REQ-FIX edit

In the rare cases where #REQ-FREEDOM and/or #REQ-DRM cannot be fulfilled (for example because in that use case is not possible to adopt any Free software) this must be treated like a bug, and Wikimedia Foundation should help organizational team in allocating similar or greater funds to fix this this bug.

Status: not yet received.

REQ-DOUBT edit

In case it is not clear whether a solution is Free or proprietary, the default assumption must be "proprietary", unless you have sufficient evidence or the opinion from a technical committee.

The Wikimedians for software freedom User group is available for clarifications in this triage process.

Status: not yet received.

What should be also nice to have edit

REQ-NO-IDENTIFICATION edit

Any online event designed or actively promoted by Wikimedia Foundation must not to require physical recognition (real first name, real last name) and in any case must not ask sensitive data (sexual preference, etc.) in order to participate as default. Moreover, this data must not be related to the username in any way, unless the owner of the username wants so or unless there is a very good reason.

Example of bad reasons: platform limitations (just change platform), statistical requirements (just do an anonymous survey not connected in any way with the username), etc.
Example of very good reasons: specific legislative obligation (for example related to voting), etc.
Status: not yet received.

Glossary edit

Here some terms and their definition. Note that this glossary is limited to the scope of this document.

Free software (and Open Source)
A software allowing to use it, study, edit and share without restrictions. See Free software on Wikipedia.
Tip: all Wikimedia Foundation's production infrastructure is designed with Free software, starting from MediaWiki.
DRM
The "Digital rights management" are technical restrictions designed to deny users from copying or sharing a content. See Digital Restriction Management on Wikipedia.
Tip: Wikipedia contents are proudly not restricted by any DRM.
Tip: The Creative Commons BY-SA license (in use in Wikipedia) also expressly prohibit the use of DRM.

How to join edit

You can add yourself in the Wikimedians for software freedom as long as you accepted the Wikimedia User Group Code of Conduct:

  • ...

Notes edit

  1. ↑ File:Wikimedia 2030 Movement Strategy Recommendations in English.pdf

External links edit

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