Talk:Open source

Closed source

Defining our standing in the open source community is fairly easy. However explaining / defining our use of closed source software is more difficult.

There are some situations where closed source software is unavoidable in running a real world organisation. Other times it is simply more efficient / cost effective to do so, but that typically is a short term gain only.

Wikimedia Foundation and some chapters use closed source software. Some of these organisations have listed the proprietary solutions (software and cloud services) on FLOSS-Exchange. John Vandenberg (talk) 04:40, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

What's the point of this page? Is it a disambiguation page? --Nemo 06:39, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

I still don't understand the point. Seems to get more and more a duplicate of FLOSS-Exchange. Nemo 06:54, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

FLOSS-Exchange is more of a register of current software usage. I expect this page to be developed so it provides definitions, explanations and some of a philosophical viewpoint, allowing readers to easily understand 'why' more than just 'what'. If you're still not sure about it, feel free to move it to my userspace. John Vandenberg (talk) 00:46, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Ok. I removed the list-like sections to avoid people unwittingly adding more bullets to them. Nemo 10:06, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Cloud services

On phab:T101807#1353493 user:Ricordisamoa mentioned ("Service is not a Software Substitute"; SaaSS by RMS) in regards to using a cloud service as part of mw:continuous integration.

I find it to not be a very useful contribution to philosophical argumentation in this space, as it doesnt define SaaSS very well, nor does it do a good job of explaining why SaaSS is a problem in and of itself. Sharing services all have privacy considerations , which can be a serious problem and a good reason to avoid such services, but the mere fact that a service offers to perform a task for a user (such as photo editing) doesnt seem to be a problem in and of itself. If I am going to share my picture, why does it matter if I rotate it on my workstation or on their service?

If a cloud service is interoperating with, and participating in the open source world, using their service is essentially outsourcing the labour and (IMO) doesnt undermine the Wikimedia values around using and creating open source. When some components of their infrastructure are not open source, the potential for w:vendor lockin needs to be evaluated and open file formats for import and export are a 'must have', and other solutions considered carefully, and ideally discussed openly with the community, and re-evaluated periodically.

Wikimedia values of privacy may be a problem for many cloud services, if those services do not have the same privacy values and policies as Wikimedia has adopted. John Vandenberg (talk) 05:25, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

If this is the main topic you want to discuss, it's probably better to reflect it in the title. The point of SaaSS is very simple, if you don't control the code you don't know what's going on with your stuff. Proprietary software should be avoided no matter where it resides; free software hosted by third parties is a different concern (only privacy needs to be evaluated). --Nemo 06:43, 16 June 2015 (UTC)