I agree, the lack of transparency is quite concerning, as is the use of AWS.
I sure hope we're not going to be producing closed source code! On Jul 9, 2020, at 10:19 AM, Amir Sarabadani <[email protected]> wrote: > Thanks Joseph for the links. It's more clear now. > > I think I need to clarify something: I'm not against asking the big corps > to pay. If they are using a significant amount of our computational > resources (=donors money) to make even more money, they should pay. And > thank you for improving the movement's financial security. I don't oppose > the general idea. > > That being said, what worries me are the details: > * WMF is creating a company (LLC) and contracts that company, this means > less transparency. This is the first time I think in the history of the > foundation AFAIK that WMF is creating a company for legal reasons (I'm > sorry if I missed anything). > * That company is contracting another company for engineering work (even > less transparency). We have lots of engineering resources at WMF. > * As the result, for the first time, code produced by donors money is > closed source and inaccessible to public (or at least I couldn't find the > code linked anywhere) > * I find it ethically wrong to use AWS, even if you can't host it in WMF > for legal reasons, why not another cloud provider. > * There wasn't a period for giving feedback for example about the choice of > cloud provider or anything, suddenly it came out ready. The rumors about it > have been going around for months. > * This has not been communicated properly to the community, I find this > lack of communication and transparency concerning and insulting. > > Hope what I'm saying here makes sense. > > On Thu, Jul 9, 2020 at 7:02 PM Todd Allen <[email protected]> wrote: > >> I tend to agree with this. I'm one of the first to criticize WMF when they >> deserve it (I wish they didn't as often!), but I see nothing wrong with >> consumers of huge amounts of data being asked to chip in to cover the costs >> of providing it. That is, of course, provided that there is never any fee >> for use of the API for users of data in regular amounts, but every plan >> I've seen thus far accommodates that. >> >> Todd >> >> On Thu, Jul 9, 2020 at 7:15 AM Ad Huikeshoven <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Hi, >>> >>> Great news: the WMF is going to charge the tech giants for using the API >>> millions of times each day. Nothing in the free licenses we use obligate >> us >>> (that is we in our movement) to provide an API for free as in beer. It is >>> part of KAAS: Knowledge As A Service, part of the strategic direction >>> chosen in 2017. >>> >>> Thanks for your understanding, >>> >>> Ad Huikeshoven >>> >>> On Sun, Jun 14, 2020 at 8:33 PM Amir Sarabadani <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> Hello, >>>> Today I stumbled upon this public phabricator ticket [1] created by >>> someone >>>> from WMF starting with: >>>> "My team is creating bi-weekly HTML Dumps for all of the wikis, except >>> for >>>> wikidata as part of the paid API project." >>>> >>>> I have so many questions: >>>> - What is the "paid API" project? Are we planning to make money out of >>> our >>>> API? Now are we selling our dumps? >>>> - If so, why is this not communicated before? Why are we kept in the >>> dark? >>>> - Does the board know and approve it? >>>> - How is this going to align with our core values like openness and >>>> transparency? >>>> - The ticket implicitly says these are going to be stored on AWS ("S3 >>>> bucket"). Is this thought through? Specially the ethical problems of >>>> feeding Jeff Bezos' empire? (If you have seen this episode of Hasan >>>> Minhaj's on ethical issues of using AWS [2]). Why can't we do/host this >>> on >>>> Wikimedia infrastructure? Has this been evaluated? >>>> - Why is the community not consulted about this? >>>> >>>> Maybe I missed announcements, consultations or anything, forgive me for >>> my >>>> ignorance. Any pointers is enough. I also understand diversifying our >>>> revenue is a good tool for rainy days but a consultation with the >>> community >>>> wouldn't be too bad. >>>> >>>> [1]: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T254275 >>>> [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5maXvZ5fyQY >>>> >>>> Best >>>> -- >>>> Amir (he/him) >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: >>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and >>>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l >>>> New messages to: [email protected] >>>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, >>>> <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: >>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and >>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l >>> New messages to: [email protected] >>> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, >>> <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l >> New messages to: [email protected] >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, >> <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> > > > > -- > Amir (he/him) > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > New messages to: [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe>
