Wikimedia Quarto/2/chapter-de/Zh
Wikimedia Deutschland ([1]) has been busy with a lot of administrative tasks. The German chapter has succeeded in gaining official status as a tax-exempt, non-profit organization. To resolve some repeatedly asked questions about the impact of copyright laws and the GNU FDL on Wikipedia, Wikimedia Deutschland has ordered a legal FAQ for the German Wikipedia from a German lawyer who specializes in Open Source and Open Content license issues.
At the end of September, Wikimedia Deutschland, together with the Stuttgart Region Economic Development Corporation (WRS) and Prof. Deborah Weber-Wulff from the University of Applied Sciences (FHTW) in Berlin, began working to participate in a well capitalized research project developed by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), called "New Media in Education [2]." Two applications have finally been submitted; the selection process will continue until the end of the year.
In early October, Wikimedia Deutschland established contacts with the OSCE, which organised the "OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting [3]" in Warsaw, where Jimbo Wales gave a speech about Wikipedia at the panel "Guaranteeing Media Freedom on the Internet." Later that month, a team from the German chapter represented Wikipedia at a booth and gave a speech at Berlinux, a Linux congress in Berlin from the 22nd to the 23rd of October, 2004. Rumours exist that John "maddog" Hall was seen wearing a Wikipedia T-Shirt there. Contacts with the Brockhaus publishing house were strengthened at several meetings, as well as contacts with Directmedia, a company from Berlin, which produced the CD version of Wikipedia. The Wikipedia CD release received several favorable reviews in the German media and was distributed on the cover of the computer magazine Chip. Directmedia currently plans a DVD version of Wikipedia for spring and invited us to share their booth at the Leipzig book fair, which is in the immediate neighbourhood of Brockhaus'.
In December, Wikimedia Deutschland attended the 21C3, the annual Congress of the Chaos Computer Club. Jimbo Wales gave a presentation about Wikipedia. And, Wikimedia Deutschland invited two of the main developers of the MediaWiki software, Brion Vibber and Tim Starling, to meet for a Mediawiki conference there.
In the last three months, there have been numerous mentions of Wikipedia in the German-language press. For example, Tageszeitung featured an article on Wikipedia, and Bild-Zeitung, Germany's biggest tabloid, published an article with a "how-to" on Wikipedia. The start of the new Wikinews-Service has been very well received by German journalists, although de:Wikinews is still at its very beginnings.