Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Software/Free and open-source software task force/Archive 1

Article tagging
I noticed the tag in Audacity. All the wikiprojects I've been a participant in—and noticed—have placed such tags on the talk pages of the associated articles. Examine the contents of these examples: Category:WikiProject Rivers Category:WikiProject Oregon Category:WikiProject Ski   Any particular reason for putting the tag on the article pages themselves? —EncMstr 22:57, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I tagged the Audacity article, and I wondered if it should be in the talk page myself. I tagged the article at the bottom of the page as per instructions on the WP:Free project page. I've seen wikiproject tags on both talk and article pages before, so there's precedent for either one, but I think I prefer to tag the talk page.  Any others have thoughts?  This should be decided before a big pile of articles get tagged.  Strobilus 00:17, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I created the template today. It doesn't matter to me where the tag goes, actually, the talk page may be preferable. My only reservation is the ugly yellowish color that these tags often seem to have. I vastly prefer the clean white of the current tag. Also, it may be a good idea, when we're just starting out, to have the tag on the main article to attract attention. However, when we've been around for a while, I support just tagging the talk page. I would create a template myself, but I currently don't know advanced template markup. I can, however, copy it from another, similar template, and modify it so that it fits WPFS. Geekman314(contact me) 03:16, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
 * There's a standard for how talk-page banners are supposed to look and act (WP:TPT). The "ugly yellowish color" is, alas, part of it.  I've updated the WPFS template to use the template-building template, so it now follows the rules. RossPatterson 04:14, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm undecided, but I see one problem with adding tags to article pages, and that is that it sets an example that will be followed. We could end up with many free software articles having 4 project boxes on them (WPFS, WPLINUX, WPSOFTWARE, and I don't know how many others...). Gronky 01:12, 19 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, that would pose a problem… Geekman314(contact me) 00:41, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject banners go on the talk pages per WikiProject_Council/Guide. I've moved all the uses of WPFS accordingly. RossPatterson 04:11, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I've never understood why it is better to spend time adding dozens of ugly yellow banners to articles rather than improving them. NicM 09:02, 7 March 2007 (UTC).
 * WP:PROJGUIDE explains why: By far the most effective method (to recruit new project members) is through the use of a project banner template. Another substantial benefit is to direct people to the relevant WikiProject page(s) before they edit an article. Often, a WikiProject has style guidelines and such for articles it oversees. This can help new editors, who may not know what infobox, stub template, navigation banner, etc., to use for a given type of article. In any case, project banner templates belong on talk pages rather than on article pages themselves, so they don't ugly up the articles. --Teratornis 23:36, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I don't really buy that. People who are interested in the area will encounter or be pointed to related wikiprojects eventually and if they are doing the work who cares if they sign their name on the page. Style guides are all good and well, but unless a wikiproject is actually working on an article they are a little presumptious and if they are, members will be quick enough to point new editors to them and to the wikiproject anyway, same as the billion other WP guides and policies. And uglying up talk pages with a dozen banners is still pretty annoying, although the "small=yes" option has gone some way to make that easier to counter. NicM 11:12, 19 April 2007 (UTC).

Articles
I'm going through my start menu and trying to tag every piece of FOSS I can think of. Even if you don't want to do the tagging, can anyone tell me the names of some FOSS so I can tag/create their articles? P3net 05:56, 19 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Do you have a Linux system? The software package manager has a long list of free software.  This is an online list for Debian.  That should keep you busy for awhile...  :-)  —EncMstr 06:25, 19 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Sure do! P3net 03:56, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Category:Free software is a category containing virtually all free software articles on Wikipedia. Geekman314(contact me) 12:59, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

IRC channel
Wikinerd2000 has been kind enough to register a freenode IRC channel, #wpfs, for our use. Feel free to use it to discuss the project, or free software in general. (By the way, if you don't feel that it's appropriate to use a Wikipedia IRC channel for general discussion, please feel free to say so.) Thanks! Geekman314(contact me) 14:08, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

While we are on the subject, I changed my nick from [gosub] to yamato on freenode. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikinerd2000 (talk • contribs) 23:37, 20 February 2007

An existing FS todo and stub box
Portal:Free software, on its Portal:Free software/Contribute page, has a todo box: and a box of requested articles and stubs: These can be added (transcluded) to the WP:WPFS page by adding these: But I'll leave it to someone else to say where they should go. It makes sense for the portal and the project to share these things. They've currently been designed to fit into the portal, but they can be changed if required - but Portal:Free_software will be applying for Featured status soon, so, if they are to be changed to fit in the WikiProject, I'd still like to keep them looking reasonably well on the Portal. Gronky 15:16, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Portal:Free software/Task_list
 * Portal:Free software/Expansion_required

Free Internet forum software category
I think that the OSI-approved-license restriction should be removed from the Free Internet forum software category. This does not accurately reflect the category description and means that any free forum software released under its own license (or any other non-OSI-approved license) is excluded from this category.

Some of the more popular software excluded by this restriction:

Ikonboard MyBB Phorum SMF YaBB (I thought YaBB was GPL, but their downloads page says otherwise)

This would also give some of the more obscure titles more exposure.

Because this restriction has been in place since the category was created, I wanted to discuss this instead of just changing it myself...

Oldiesmann 16:46, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * You're right. I've fixed it now by copying the standard "Category:Free whatever" intro. Gronky 18:29, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Title of WikiProject
Greetings,

Iraneal has brought to my attention that term used to refer to software which has has its source code released is a point of contention, and that entitling the WikiProject "WikiProject Free Software" seems like it exhibits a bias towards one camp. Perhaps a re-titling is in order? Geekman314(contact me) 02:13, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * WikiProject Open Source was already tried, and it didn't work. Wikiproject Free Software is off to a pretty good start.  Maybe it's that free software implies a slightly different scope (one that includes the ethical and political issues), maybe it's that the term "free software" has a clearer or more accepted definition, maybe it's that free software has a more defined history (did "open source" begin in 1998? 1983? the 50s?).  IMO, changing what people have signed up for won't help. Gronky 02:34, 8 March 2007 (UTC)


 * As long as the project page is clear what "free" means in relation to the project, I don't see a problem. As Gronky points out, the flexibility of the term might help attract participants.  It's rather ingenious to use an article for the definition... —EncMstr 02:59, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Retitled to what? There is no alternative that isn't ugly (FOSS, FLOSS) or stupid ("free / open source software", "free software / open source software"). And as Gronky points out, when talking about the actual software they are pretty much the same thing, but free software has a lot more philosophy and ethics articles. Although I think we should cover specifically open source related articles too. NicM 09:06, 8 March 2007 (UTC).

This project is still young, but it seems to be working out regardless of its name. You can count me as one of the "Stallman is a raving lunatic", "BSD beats GPL hands down", pro-Open Source camp, but I can live with calling this "Wikiproject Free Software" just fine. The internecine wars among the advocates of freely-available-source programming need to stop someday, why not start stopping now?

Besides, WPFLOSS would have to be group for either dentistry or G-string fans :-) RossPatterson 17:23, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I'll weigh in as the one who brought this whole thing up. Nine times out of ten, the two terms are completely compatible. What I try to avoid are projects/communities that are proponents of "Free Software" to the deliberate exclusion of the open source definition. When I was invited to participate in this project I checked the project page, found no mention of open source, and assumed it was intentional. The inclusion of this very discussion, however, proves otherwise, and I believe that Linus' intentions were to include as many Free Software/Open Source advocates as possible to make it a better project. In sum, I can live with "Free Software" as the title of the project. But it would still be nice (and inclusive, in the wikipedia tradition) to reference open source (and the compatibility of the two) somewhere in the project page. I know it's just semantics and hair-splitting for some, but for others (me, obviously) it makes a difference. Neal Locke


 * Free software used to mention in the intro that it is also called "open-source software". That seems to have disappeared at some point.  I've just re-added it. Gronky 13:42, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Article improvement
I believe that enough articles have been tagged that we should start really improving them in earnest. We should probably pick some articles to focus in particular on. Any ideas? Geekman314(contact me) 23:21, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, Free software itself could use some work and Open source is pretty awful. Open source software isn't that great either. I'm not really interested in FOSS philosophy but they are probably important articles. On the software side, FreeBSD, NetBSD and Linux could all do with tidying up, and Linux kernel with a bit too. There are dozens more software articles in various states of disrepair. NicM 11:31, 19 April 2007 (UTC).

Google searches for WikiProject Free Software
I'm impressed:. Also, with the inclusion of quotation marks to narrow the results:. Geekman314(contact me) 22:09, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Here's how to link to the same searches with an interwiki link:
 * WikiProject Free Software
 * "WikiProject Free Software"
 * The trick is to represent inter-word spaces with . --Teratornis 23:49, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Debate on free software subcats
People in this project may have ideas on how to improve categorization of free software on Wikipedia. I think we might want to improve the names, short descriptions, and/or generate a consensus as to what does and doesn't belong in the categories. This was brought up on Category talk:Free software in response to Talk:POV-Ray, so perhaps discussion should be centered in either or both of those other pages. --Karnesky 14:58, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I added a poll, as we're starting to get the same comments from the same small group of people. Talk:POV-Ray --Karnesky 22:17, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Personally, I think "Free X" categories should be zero cost and categories specifically for free software should be, eg, "Free software X". NicM 12:05, 18 March 2007 (UTC).
 * How about "Freeware X" and "Free software X?" --Karnesky 12:22, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
 * That would perhaps be better. "Free X" is pretty ambiguous. The only problem with "Free software X" is that you could end up with clumsy titles like "Free software 3D graphics software," but I suppose it could always be "Free software 3D graphics programs." In either case, it makes clear that it is using "free software" as an attribute (possessing of a free software licence) rather than as a description (is software that is free, which is ambiguous). NicM 12:35, 18 March 2007 (UTC).
 * I would recommend that it remain "Free X software", but freeware be classified as "X freeware". Geekman314(contact me) 13:31, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
 * That doesn't change the problem at all. NicM 13:49, 18 March 2007 (UTC).

It could always be "free software for 3D graphics". --Karnesky 15:27, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I could go for something like that. And since it puts "free" and "software" together in the title, there would, hopefully, not be the issues seen on POV-Ray talk.  Also, I think the cat descriptions should prominently mention that "free software" has nothing to do with price.  Furthermore, I don't think articles should be included in more than one Free, Free Software, or Freeware  categories--only the most specific one that fits.--Hamitr 16:11, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think that is ideal, it again seems to be putting the "free" before the "free software." My point is to avoid describing something as "free," which is very ambiguous and non-obvious, rather than as "free software," which is less so. "Free software for 3D graphics" can be read as "Free," "software for 3D graphics." whereas somthing like "Free software 3D graphics programs" cannot. NicM 00:32, 19 March 2007 (UTC).
 * I see your point (from the last half of your comment, at least). I could go for either as long as "free" and "software" are together.  Of course my motivation is to remove as much ambiguity as possible, so whatever achieves that will get my vote. --Hamitr 00:55, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
 * "Free and open source software for X"? --Karnesky 01:29, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't think both is necessary. I would pick either the FSF or OSI list of approved licenses and have either "Free software X" or "Open source X" categories. Everything else could go into whatever category is for free (zero cost) software ("Free X" or "Freeware X" or whatever). NicM 23:16, 19 March 2007 (UTC).
 * Neither individual list is comprehensive (it takes time to verify licenses), so I wouldn't like that.
 * Note also that there is ongoing talk on POV-Ray that "free software" is a generic term. I don't know how much to humor them--nothing less than something like "X software under a FSF-approved license" would seem to satisfy all detractors. --Karnesky 23:32, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Optimum level of sub-cats
Does anyone have an opinion on the number of sub-cat levels? For instance, the phpBB article is in Category:Free Internet forum software. If I go to that cat page, I kind of expect it to be a sub-cat of both Category:Free software and Category:Internet forum software. Instead, of Category:Free software, though, it is in Category:Free network-related software which is a sub-cat of Category:Free software.

The same is true for trying to get from Category:Free_3D_graphics_software to Category:Free software. It goes:
 * ↑Category:Free software
 * ↑Category:Free_application_software
 * ↑Category:Free_graphics_software
 * ↑Category:Free_3D_graphics_software

--Hamitr 16:42, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Relation to: WikiProject Open Source
In, Gronky says: WikiProject Open Source was already tried, and it didn't work. I have some questions:

I personally don't care either way, but the presence of two WikiProjects that seem to overlap, yet seem oblivious to each other, may confuse some people. --Teratornis 00:13, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
 * What does "didn't work" mean?
 * Did the WikiProject's name have anything to with it "not working"?
 * WikiProject Open Source does not mention anything about the project "not working." Should it?
 * Why don't either of the following two project pages mention the other?
 * 
 * WikiProject Open Source
 * What is the relationship between these two WikiProjects? Are they working independently on exclusive sets of articles, or is one WikiProject trying to deprecate the other?
 * It doesn't seem to be doing much now anyway, I suspect not because of the name, more likely because the people who established it had less time/commitment or didn't get the word out as well. Gronky calls it free software and he has put a lot of effort into this WikiProject and pages like Portal:Free software, I don't think there is anyone similar who prefers the name open source. NicM 12:34, 7 April 2007 (UTC).

License of Chameleon (GIS)
While perusing some GIS articles, I came across Chameleon (GIS) which is claimed to be open source, but is not yet in Category:Free GIS software. The license appears to be a modified BSD or BSD-like. Would anyone with more expertise care to comment? --Hamitr 16:41, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
 * You are correct, the license is BSD-style and source code is available, so this is free software. --h2g2bob 15:21, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Added category --h2g2bob 15:22, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Internet Explorer?
Someone added this WikiProject to the Internet Explorer article a few days ago. I'm removing it; clearly IE is absolutely not Free software within the definitions of this WikiProject. :) -/- Warren 23:13, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Nominations for AFI

 * 1) Free software. Obviously, this is of central importance, but it is only a B-class article. It would be excellent if it could be improved to an FA. --Liπus the Turbogeek(contact me) 18:09, 20 April 2007 (UTC)
 * 2) OpenSSH and OpenSSL - these are two of the most common open source items you can possibly find in use.  While OpenSSL gets more use, being used in everything from Opera to OpenSSH itself, it is a very important bit of software, however, OpenSSH does get noticed a fair bit more, since it gets used as itself, rather than always being included inside the other software (unless you count all the Unixes, Linuxes and BSDs it's included with by default).  I really think both should be made Featured Articles, though OpenSSL more than OpenSSH.  74.13.60.113 06:51, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
 * 3) Java Development Kit - newly released under the GPL, but the article is thin and lacking in sources

Ratings w/ template
I reduced a couple of the { importance ratings (Apache and Pidgin). In my opinion top ratings should be for articles core to free software/OSS, articles that define or are central to the subject, eg Free software Free Software Foundation. Even the most significant free software programs (Linux, Apache, the *BSDs, Firefox, etc) should be a high, and most software medium or lower. Ditto most philosophy articles: medium or lower unless they deal with an important topic, in which case high. Obviously there may need to be compromises about what is "important" (although with software, if GNU and Linux are high, it should be easy to relate most of the rest). This is my view, any other opinions so we can get some kind of consensus on this? I might go through and review all the unrated articles so it would be nice to know :-). NicM 22:31, 27 April 2007 (UTC).

Proposed LastCommitBot for free software articles and comparison tables involving free software
I have an idea for a bot to improve free software infoboxes, and comparison tables involving free software (as found in Category:Software comparisons). Users often want to know whether a project is actively maintained, or has been abandoned. As a rule of thumb, a project which has not had any commits in its source code repository for years is likely unmaintained. I therefore propose the idea of a bot to run every month or so, and to add to each free software infobox and comparison table including free software, an automatically-obtained "last commit date", if it is possible to automatically obtain one (of course, some free software projects do not have public source code repositories). I suggest that if the last commit was less than a month ago, it could simply say

Last commit: Less than 2 months ago

(this takes account of the fact that the data might not be updated again for a month.)

(Last commit could be a wikilink to an appropriate page explaining the concept.)

If the last commit was older than a month ago, it would instead put:

Last commit: YYYY-MM-DD

(with YYYY-MM-DD being replaced by the actual last commit date). Times are obviously not necessary.

The bot would obviously only attempt to edit pages where there was data that need to be updated. It would call the various clients (CVS, svn, mtn, darcs etc.) to find out the latest checkin date (on any branch, because - for example - a rewrite or refactoring might be taking place somewhere other than on the HEAD).

How would it know the URL / location of the remote repository? Well, that could be specified in a standardised way in comments in the infobox or table, for example. I'm sure some kind of system could be worked out.

The only potential problem I see is getting "false positive" results where a dead project and a live project share the same repository - but I think that is likely to be both rare, and easily dealt with, by marking the infobox or table row as not to be updated by this bot.

I am not volunteering to create this bot. I might or might not contribute to its creation, I haven't decided yet. If there is a positive response here, I or someone else might take it to the idea to the next stage - Bot Request for Approval. It's not required to show source code to get approval, although a trial process may be required. Anyone considering implementing such a bot might want to consider basing it on / adding to PyWikpediaBot.

What do people think of this idea? —greenrd 17:32, 30 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I think this is a good idea, giving people like me who like to quickly get a summary of the status of a project, specifically relating to how active it is. One item that comes to mind is how to decide what is a good cut-off date for a "dead project" flag? Ma11achy 14:44, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a good idea. --Liπus the Turbogeek(contact me) 23:41, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't last release be better, perhaps from the software infoboxes in the articles? Also, I think you need to be careful not to draw any conclusions from the last commit or last release, which would surely be POV and OR&mdash;so a "dead" flag is definitely a bad idea. I don't think merely showing the date would be a great problem though. NicM 07:59, 4 May 2007 (UTC).


 * The point of having it as last commit instead of last release is so that you can see what the development activity is like, so you can see that work is being done even if there hasn't been a release in a while. That's important, and that's something that might not occur to newbies and non-techies. Also, there's currently no way to automate last release checking (except by mirroring data from Freshmeat, which is incomplete and might not be up-to-date because - but I am repeating myself - there is no way to automate last release checking). I agree on the flag thing.—greenrd 20:28, 4 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I think just pulling Wikipedia's idea of the last release from the infoboxes would be fine, if it is inaccurate or missing, well, it is already inaccurate in the source article and putting it on other pages just gives more chance it will be fixed. Why not do both.... if you do end up pulling CVS repo from the infoboxes it would probably not be much more work. NicM 07:28, 5 May 2007 (UTC).

"Intellectual property" in Wikipeda
I've noticed that the biased and misleading propaganda term "intellectual property" is used a lot in Wikipedia. I think this is unacceptable, and I try to remove references to it whenever I can (except in a few cases, such as in articles about the term), and replace them with more accurate and neutral terms. Does anyone think it would be appropriate for this project to deal with this matter, or that it'd be a good idea to start a new WikiProject for this? Guyjohnston 21:04, 14 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I would propose that a new wikiproject be created, "WikiProject Free Culture" or something. --Liπus the Turbogeek(contact me) 02:47, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't see anything wrong with using the term in contexts where it meets the definition in intellectual property, which seems clear enough. If it is being misused, I wouldn't think a WikiProject to deal with one term is really necessary, and I certainly wouldn't try to bring culture into it. Wouldn't it most likely already come under WP:LAW? NicM 13:15, 16 May 2007 (UTC).


 * It could be put on the Task list. The entry could be about reviewing WP use of the term with attention to cases where a more specific term or terms could be used? Gronky 00:23, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Notepad++
Notepad++ needs to be improved, to have the lack of notability template removed. It also deserves a much better article as it is such a good editor. -- A dam1213 Talk + 10:19, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

New SVG logo
'''Note that as of 2007-09-16 the current portal logo is Image:Free_Software_Portal_Logo.svg. ''' This image can be changed of redirected for future changes. -- Kl4m  Talk Contrib  —Preceding signed but undated comment was added at 03:46, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I have raised the issue in the talk page of the Free software portal, but maybe here is more pertinent, looking at item 23 in the todo list:

23. (2006-04-12) Add the tag to articles about, or related to, free software.

I'd like to note that I have "corrected" the Floss_draft.svg image that was to supercede the currently used Floss_draft.png. There were some concerns for not using that SVG, but I hope the new one (Floss logos.svg) is OK. May I suggest using the new SVG for the tags? Does it make sense changing current portal tags to use the new SVG? I started doing it yesterday, but I'd like to comment here before going on, lest more harm than good is done. &mdash; isilanes (talk|contribs) 14:35, 24 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Please add the Mozilla dinosaur to the logo.


 * Everyone has agreed so far that three is the best number of logos to have - to balance representativeness with size/seeability. The Mozilla logo was avoided because Mozilla is a smaller contribution than the Linux kernel, the GNU project, or the free BSD systems, and because, unlike the other three, it is covered by a trademark which is enforced (and it is aggressively enforced). Gronky 21:21, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Not everyone, me and some others have agreed on this before. But you told me no then too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal_talk:Free_software#Logo_on_the_portal.3F — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.167.146.212 (talk • contribs)

The portal boxes change across WP is done. The SVG file it points to can be changed or redirected in a single edit, unlike its Commons counterpart. Can images be semi-protected? -- Kl4m  Talk Contrib 06:53, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Idea for new todo box: translations
There are some articles that are getting quite mature but which have few or no translations:
 * Alternative terms for free software - most interwiki versions describe a different topic
 * Free software licences - most interwiki versions reflect a very old version
 * Software patents and free software
 * Permissive free software licences
 * History of free software - still lacking some maturity, actually, but worthwhile topic

Creating equivalent articles in other languages would make Wikipedians from non-English Wikipedias aware of the work we've done here, and when they build on that work, we would have further sources to draw from to improve our articles.

And in the other direction, what articles exist in other languages, or are better in other languages, that we should try to use as starting points for articles in English wikipedia or for improving the corresponding articles in English wikipedia? Gronky 15:23, 29 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Speaking of other languages, I just noticed that WPFS already has an Italian sister project: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progetto:Software_libero Gronky 19:58, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


 * It seems that three translations have since appeared for the History of free software article. That's good progress. Gronky 21:14, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Why Wikinerd2000 Has Been Gone!
I, WikiNerd2000, have been gone because my Comcast Service was terminated for exceeding bandwidth. i will not be able to return untill atleast mid July, because I am moving. Wikinerd2000 20:38, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

ILWIS - Free Software of the Month
ILWIS 3.4 Open was liberated on 1 July, 2007. A GIS and remote sensing software, ILWIS is nominated as the free software of the month.
 * --Tharikrish 15:56, 2 July 2007 (UTC)


 * The article is reasonably good but reads like a press release and the feature list is beyond unwieldy. I'll try to put some effort into this. Thanks! — m a k o ๛  18:46, 5 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Please suggest whether ILWIS deserves something better than low-importance on the assessment scale. - Tharikrish 04:21, 11 July 2007 (UTC)


 * So, ILWIS is too new in the free software community to decide. I've asked a few friends in the GIS community about this and my understanding is that the software is not particularly important or well known in the general free software community but that people in the free software GIS community find its release as free software reasonably exciting. It might be a medium important article for a GIS article but is unlikely more than low priority for free software in general. — m a k o ๛  12:43, 12 July 2007 (UTC)


 * True, ILWIS is not well known in the "general" free software community. After all ILWIS is only a 15 day old FOSS baby and is presently available only on Windows. But if ILWIS can be of medium interest to the GIS community, it should of at least the same for "general" free software community, and of high importance to free GIS community. That is because free software lacks widely accepted GIS tools. ILWIS is to a large extent more popular among "general" GIS community than GRASS GIS and QGIS. Anyway the assessment in general for free software is highly skewed. Low priority articles includes Audacity, Compiere, MoinMoin, World Wind, OOo Calc, Rosegarden, Nmap, Nvu, OpenEv, Snort, SquirrelMail, TuxPaint and Xine amongst many others. Some of these software are usually hyped as "stars". ILWIS should not have any problem to keep these software company. --Tharikrish 07:32, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I completely agree that most of the program you mentipned seemed to have been assessed too low (I have not heard of Compiere, World Wind, or OpenEv). Each of those should be at least medium. Why don't you be bold and raise their priority? If someone disagrees, we can talk about it. This is a wiki after all. — m a k o ๛  16:51, 15 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Sorry for not doing that. Some of the above software elevated to Mid category.--Tharikrish 17:01, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Assesment
I now have completely assesed all the articles which haven't been rated before, with the exception of articles that were merged but still have a talk page. This isn't done perfectly and if you have any comments or if you have criticism of my work please post it here. Daimanta 15:26, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Awesome! Thanks Daimanta for your hard work on this! — m a k o ๛  12:44, 12 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Great job, Daimanta. --Liπus the Turbogeek(contact me) 19:36, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I assesed the second batch. Daimanta 18:40, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Should List of Unix utilities be tagged?
Should List of Unix utilities be tagged? UNIX is not free, but many (if not all) of these utility's have (often multiple) free incarnations (ie. GNU, BSD). As a new member to this project, I would rather "ask the experts" to be sure rather than just tagging it. Carpetsmoker 03:39, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Newbie here
1. Should/Could the participants list go on a subpage?

2. I tagged the Quake engines : Talk:Quake engine, Talk:Id Tech 2, Talk:Id Tech 3, They once have been proprietary but they have been released under GPL. I'm also planning on going through CMSes and other Web apps. Is that OK?

Kl4m 03:51, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi. The participants list could go on a subpage, but it's sign that the project is alive, so maybe it's better left on the main page.  ...or maybe you're right.  I'm not sure.


 * Thanks for tagging the idsoftware articles. I've now also added  .  Maybe the List of liberated software article should give more detail on the free software released by idsoftware.


 * Going through the CMSes and noting which ones are free software would indeed be useful. Also, many articles about free software don't mention which free software licence the project uses, and/or don't provide a reference to backup the licence information.  These are also problems worth fixing.


 * Welcome to WP Free Software! Gronky 09:53, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I will be replacing with  whenever I see it. Maybe some replace bot could do that, though. --  Kl4m  Talk Contrib 01:37, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It's an opportunity for me to experiment with AutoWikiBrowser. I'm going to see what I can do for these templates. -- Kl4m  Talk Contrib  —The preceding  signed but undated.

I would like to stress that it is pretty important to add classes and importance factors to the WPFS tag. That way it isn't neccesairy to periodically tag al unclassed articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Daimanta (talk • contribs) 18:50, August 26, 2007 (UTC)

Kl4m-AWB is currently replacing all the portal boxes with a new version.The image has been copied to WP so it can easily be changed, unlike the Commons version. Bot approval is here. -- Kl4m  Talk Contrib 00:50, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposed deletion: Beaver (text editor)

 * --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 11:24, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
 * updated --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 03:40, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

PROD and AFD: Jzip

 * --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 17:37, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * updated --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 03:40, 26 November 2007 (UTC)


 * What he means to say is that the Jzip article was proposed for deletion on 2007-08-24, and that it may be deleted on 2007-08-29. It isn't tagged for WP:FS, but then again it was proposed for deletion less than two hours after it was created.  RossPatterson 18:38, 26 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Freeware != Free Software so it shouldn't matter to this wikiproject anyway. -- Diletante 22:08, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

This was taken to AFD and subsequently deleted; see Articles for deletion/JZip. --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 00:13, 12 September 2007 (UTC)


 * updated --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 03:40, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Template:Infobox software license
I created this template Template:Infobox software license, it's an infobox to describe a license as the name suggests. What do you think of it? --Argento3 21:22, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
 * It seems very FOSS-centric, but I have no idea how it couldn't be. -- Kl4m  Talk Contrib 00:47, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Paint.NET
The Paint.NET raster image program seems to fit the criteria for inclusion in this WikiProject. I've added the Talk Page template to its talk page, but left it unassessed. My apologies if this was the wrong proect to add it to. =David ( talk )( contribs ) 20:14, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
 * User_talk:David. -- Kl4m  Talk Contrib 05:19, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

WikiNerd Is Back
It's just a little problem with Comcast. Ya know the bandwidth thingy. Just got it back!! Wikinerd2000 20:37, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

A webpage button?
If someone could make a nice 88x31 pixel button, people could show their support for WPFS on their homepages. A bit like the Wikipedia userboxes, but it should be a solid image (jpeg or png) for use on non-wikipedia websites. 88x31 is a good size because then it would fit well with the w3c "valid html" buttons that are already on a lot of webpages. A button for Portal:Free Software would be good too. Any takers? --Gronky 12:48, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Sure!
Sure, I'll try to make one asap! Wikinerd2000 08:07, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

FAR for X Window System
X Window System has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. --Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 15:54, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Proposed deletion and AFD: KoffeePhoto

 * --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 17:07, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
 * updated --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 00:23, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
 * --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 17:07, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
 * updated --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 00:23, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Proposed Afd: "Free and open source software"
There is an article on "free and open source software". I've suggested that it be deleted. The discussion is here:


 * Talk:Free and open source software

Input sought. --Gronky 11:53, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Proposed deletion: Pointbase

 * --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 03:04, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
 * updated --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 00:25, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Proposed deletion: Ultimate Pricechecker

 * --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 00:26, 18 October 2007 (UTC)
 * updated --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 16:59, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Afd: Free and open source software
As mentioned previously, FYI: Articles_for_deletion/Free_and_open_source_software --Gronky 13:28, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Result of AfD was Keep
discuss a merger at Talk:Free_and_open_source_software Lentower 01:09, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

PaX is listed at FAR
PaX has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.  Pagra shtak  19:57, 29 October 2007 (UTC)


 * It seems PaX lost its Featured status. AFAICT, there are now only 3 free software articles with featured status: Mozilla Firefox, OpenBSD, X Window System.  If anyone knows of others, please update Portal:Free software/Wikipedia featured articles. --Gronky (talk) 15:59, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

PROD: Wavosaur

 * --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 03:44, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
 * updated --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 18:36, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

PROD: BootSkin

 * --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 00:47, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
 * updated --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 18:36, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Proposed deletion: QtiPlot

 * --User:Ceyockey ( talk to me ) 18:37, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
 * updated Technobadger (talk) 16:57, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Proposed AFD: Brave GNU World

 * Technobadger (talk) 12:39, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
 * updated Technobadger (talk) 16:57, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
 * updated Technobadger (talk) 16:57, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Articles about KDE developers?
I attended KDE 4.0 release event and made a number photos of commons:Category:KDE developers. There are also photos of Haavard Nord (Trolltech/Qt, see also de:Haavard Nord) and John H. Terpstra (Samba).

Anybody interested to write articles about them? However I'm not sure about notability threshold.

EugeneZelenko (talk) 19:01, 20 January 2008 (UTC)


 * FWIW, there's a Haavard Nord article on the German WP. I can't find any John H. Terpstra articles.  Either way, these pictures could be used in other articles such as the KDE 4 article (although, there's currently a discussion about merging that into the KDE article). --Gronky (talk) 15:53, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Anyone able to make banner ad for WPFS?
There is a Wikipedia project called Template:Wikipedia_ads which displays ads for Wikipedia projects. If someone has the time and ability, we should submit an ad there. It might help attract contributors. --Gronky (talk) 15:47, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Reply: I can try if you wish. Wikinerd2000 (talk) 05:51, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Strawpoll on Talk:Alternative_terms_for_free_software
There is a strawpoll on whether or not to merge Alternative terms for free software into the free and open source software article. --Gronky (talk) 13:40, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Drupal interview
Dear all,

I'm preparing a Wikinews interview with Dries Buytaert, the head of Drupal. It would be very helpful if you could suggest questions on the interview preparation page.

cheers, --Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 10:09, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

About GNU/Linux terminology
Jimbo Wales has posted this comment on User_talk:Thumperward:

"I would like to offer my opinion. The project to excise all references to GNU/Linux is deeply POV and wrong. It should be reverted completely and totally as quickly as possible. Virtually all references to Linux should be references to GNU/Linux. I am certainly unaware of any community consensus which would support the draconian and absurd campaign that has been conducted against the correct naming convention.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:29, 7 February 2008 (UTC)"

Just FYI. ("The project" refers to a project by one Wikipedian, Thumperward aka Chris Cunningham) --Gronky (talk) 12:32, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Rewrite for Apache James
The Apache James article was deleted last November. I asked the admin to move it to my userspace at User:Ham Pastrami/Apache James. I will take the responsibility of rewriting it, but of course will welcome the assistance of other editors to improve the article and make it as good as it can be so it will not be nominated again (or survive if it does). I have posted 4 working sources on the page that can be used as independent references. Anything you can do to assist, including editing, sourcing, or providing images is appreciated. Ham Pastrami (talk) 17:28, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Free software maintainers who are also Wikipedians
I co-maintain a nontrivial Free Software project which has an article. The article has various places where citations are needed. I know of reliable sources where some of these things are stated, and I suppose for others of them I myself could make pronouncements about what is and isn't policy or history or whatever and post them somewhere on the relevant site. I've been a Wikipedian now for four years, but I haven't wanted to edit that particular article much because of WP:COI. Should I make changes? Should I be asking people what needs saying and then tipping them off when it's said? Marnanel (talk) 19:02, 7 March 2008 (UTC)


 * You probably should just list information sources on the talk page, and let people roll with it from there. If I don't think I can make a particular edit for an article, I tend to play it that way.  But because of the vanity rules, you're pretty much forbidden from editing an article you're directly related to.  74.13.52.11 (talk) 21:35, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Free games
There is a joint AFD at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Free games that has nominated both Free games and Open source video games for deletion. I would invite your WikiProject to comment on this AfD, and to potentially help come to a consensus as to what to do with them -- RoninBK T C 22:16, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that the suggestions for deletions are sometimes too quickly accepted. Why should an information be deleted? Take care of this! Its close to burning books! Anyone remember who did this and why? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wwwolf3 (talk • contribs) 00:56, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Request for Comment on Linux
An RfC for the long-standing naming issue / flame war regarding the terms "Linux" and "GNU/Linux" has been opened here. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 17:56, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Article review request
Dear all, Could you review the article about LeechCraft and say what should be enhanced and what requires further work?

0xd34df00d (talk) 08:41, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Ubuntu GA Help, please!
We're almost done with readying Ubunut for Good Article status. However, the GA reviewer has asked that the prose in the Package classification and support section be fixed. If others could have a look at it, that'd be great! I'll look over it as well. I'd also like someone to give the Alternate Installation a look over and copy edit, as I massed it together earlier. Thanks! --Falcorian (talk) 01:53, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

The IRC Channel?
You know guys, the IRC channel is still there, and since I've switched to Freenode as my default network, I'm there all the time. It's #wpfs. Just pointing it out, you know. :-)

Wikinerd2000 (talk) 02:32, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

A discussion
An important discussion on " Should WikiProjects get prior approval of other WikiProjects (Descendant or Related or any ) to tag articles that overlaps their scope ?  " is open here . We welcome you to participate and give your valuable opinions. --  TinuCherian  (Wanna Talk?) -, member of WikiProject Council. 15:01, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Asking for help with Metacity article
I can't edit Metacity because of COI (I'm a maintainer), but someone's changed it today to say that its programming language is GTK+. This is clearly silly. Can someone see about fixing it, please? Marnanel (talk) 16:02, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Fixed. By the way, WP:COI isn't an outright ban on editing articles editors have affiliations with; fixing obvious errors like that improves the project for everyone. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:45, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

indicating takeovers
Hi! This might very well not be the right place to ask this, so feel free to direct me elsewhere:

Do we have a template (or other standard wording) to slap onto articles describing software where there is a confusion between legit and takeover/scam versions? Example: Shareaza. I've noticed some of our fellow wikipedians have shot down the cruder attempts to highlight the issue ("warning! don't use indiscriminately") and now I would like to arrive at a consensual way of imparting such information (or rather, elevating its prominence). Possibly this has been discussed before? Anyone? Thanks, CapnZapp (talk) 23:14, 11 July 2008 (UTC)


 * They get shot down because it's usually POV-pushing. Shareaza actually handles the question well:
 * "Domain loss On 19 December 2007, the project's domain name, shareaza.com, was redirected to an unrelated site, promoting the download of an adware[4] client known as ShareazaV4.[5] As a result, the original project was forced to move their home page to SourceForge.net. Since 1 January 2008, the new domain takes advantage of Shareaza's built-in automatic update feature to suggest to users that the ShareazaV4 application is an update to Shareaza. This vulnerability was fixed in Shareaza 2.3.1.0.[6] Yahoo, which uses SiteAdvisor to filter their search results[7], no longer lists the fraudulent domain due to it being listed by SiteAdvisor as a security risk.[4] Attempted trademark takeover On 10 January 2008, the new owners of Shareaza.com, Discordia Ltd (iMesh Inc.[8]), filed for trademark registration of the Shareaza name, claiming that the first-ever use of this name was on 17 December 2007.[9] The Shareaza Development Team urged users of the program to send Letters of Protest to the patent office and set up a legal defense fund.[10]"
 * Note the way the issue is handled - not with bias or anger, but rather as another reliably sourced event in the history of the project. RossPatterson (talk) 00:15, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I think the problem here is that User:CapnZapp rather thinks that the Shareaza article doesn't actually go far enough. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:45, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, my question here is if there is a way (a template, an accepted wording etc) to increase the visibility of the above cited information, so that a reader becomes much less likely to miss the fact something's up, and thus may become aware using the software in various perfectly normal ways will not yield safe results. (In this case, visiting "shareaza.com" or updating to "version 4" including by auto-update). Many readers don't read articles in full, and I believe this information is sufficiently important to warrant a higher visibility than just being included in the running text. For the purposes of this discussion, Shareaza is just an example. Has this been discussed somewhere before? Thanks, CapnZapp (talk) 16:13, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * It was discussed extensively on talk:Shareaza, which should serve as an example that consensus is that current wording is well-thought-out and an acceptable compromise. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 16:25, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Under no circumstances should anyone create a template - it would act as a disclaimer and would be nuked in seconds of entering article space. We report on issues giving them the due weight they deserve using reliable sources. It is not our function to provide warmings or advice to people on software selection - any attempts to do so will be removed by the community.--Allemandtando (talk) 11:34, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Assesment
Ok, I assesed another batch of 150 articles. If you have a comment or a question, just leave it at my page. Regards, Daimanta (talk) 01:26, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Articles flagged for cleanup
Currently, 695 articles are assigned to this project, of which 224, or 32.2%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 2008-07-14.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. More than 150 projects and work groups have already subscribed, and adding a subscription for yours is easy - just place a template on your project page.

If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page; I'm not watching this page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 16:42, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

GeoGebra
Should GeoGebra be listed in the free software category? It uses a license other than the GPL for the language files that translate the UI. SharkD (talk) 09:25, 12 August 2008 (UTC)