[FM Discuss] Wordpress stuff

Sun Mar 2 14:26:35 PST 2008

thank you all for talking through these points with me .

- in the manual as it stands i refer to itunes and songbird for  
testing the podcast .
- in the manual as it stands i refer to paying wordpress.com in order  
to be able to upload music and video . i paid 20$ in order to write  
this section of the manual .

- in the manual as i had envisaged it ( tactical as not directed the  
specifics writing of it, only that it cover podcasting with  
wordpress ) i was going to include a section on how to publicize  - a  
podcast using the itunes store ( which is free, perhaps not open,  
though well documented ) . the listening to such cast mayn't be open,  
but adding 5 lines of xml is free .

- i am more than happy to look at miro as another channel .
- i am more than happy to remove references to itunes . if anyone has  
another media player i can write about that is non-beta, that would  
be ideal .
- i am concerned about the 20$ requirement of one of the chapters .  
but removing it would remove the ability to use the wordpress.com  
service for podcasting altogether .
- i am happy to leave out publicizing a podcast via the store . the  
itunes extension to the rss format IS NOT required in order to use  
itunes store, it simply improves the podcast's metadata . it is well  
documented and i have left a link to the documentation in the  
chapter . in order to take advantage of the rss itunes:namespace, one  
would need greater knowledge of a couple of areas of wordpress, that  
are currently not provided by the manual .

so lets itemize the questions, and take a vote ( is that how it  
works ? ) or those who get to decide, let them decide .

1	can an open manual encourage the reader to spend money on open but  
non-free services ?

2	can an open manual refer to the use of free but non-open software ?

3	can an open manual spruke a non-open service ?

On 03/03/2008, at 7:57 AM, Simon Yuill wrote:

> Hi Seth,
>
> I appreciate your points about accessibility and not being
> 'religious', and agree with them to some extent, however,
> I would argue that the issue with the iTunes store in
> relation to 'libre' services is that you can only access
> it through the non-free iTunes software, so regardless of
> what licence you distribute your content under, it still
> places restrictions on how you access it. iTunes store may
> be 'free' in terms of what you put in but it is not 'free'
> (as in libre) in terms of how you can get it out at the
> other end. For this reason I would argue that it is not
> appropriate to encourage its use in a project dedicated to
> encouraging FLOSS uptake. I would argue that for this
> reason that to promote iTunes usage does indeed bend the
> principles of FLOSS quite considerably.
>
> There is an article here on why the French newspaper
> Liberation has chosen Miro over iTunes for its podcasts:
>
> http://pculture.org/devblogs/teammiro/2008/01/19/french-newspaper- 
> to-recommend-miro/
>
> One point Liberation make in the article is that they felt
> using iTunes for distribution made their content less
> accessible.
>
> I would agree that there needs to be a balance between
> purity of principle and accessibility, but I don't think
> we would compromise on accessibility if we give preference
> to encouraging services that are properly FLOSS or closer
> to FLOSS in how they operate.
>
> best wishes
> Si
>
> On Sun, 2 Mar 2008 12:25:00 -0800
>   "Seth Woodworth" <seth at isforinsects.com> wrote:
>> I'm not a regular contributor to FM, but I disagree.
>>
>> One: iTunes is opening it's DRM considerably as of late,
>> and offering higher
>> quality and non-drm songs.
>> Two: iTines contains content from many of the open
>> lecture series from MIT
>> Harvard etc that are all open content and CC licensed.
>> This material is for
>> free, and is extensive.  So FM would be in good company.
>> Three: Doesn't it make sense to try to preach to the
>> people in the iTunes
>> crowd?  Attempt to be a voice of reason and explain
>> positions to people who
>> might not otherwise hear them?
>>
>> All of my arguments assume one can publish with iTunes
>> non-exclusively.  But
>> I think that distribution with iTunes, Podiobooks (CC
>> audiobooks), or any
>> organization that will carry FM content.
>>
>> I feel/think that one of the purposes is to document
>> FLOSS projects to break
>> down some of these religious disagreements between free
>> and non-free
>> systems.  Distribution through iTunes would reach a very
>> large audience with
>> little or no bending of morals or principles.
>>
>> On Sun, Mar 2, 2008 at 9:21 AM, adam hyde
>> <adam at flossmanuals.net> wrote:
>>
>>> hi,
>>>
>>> I agree with you Simon - FM is for FLOSS and if we cross
>>> into services
>>> then these should be free services (but what exactly is
>>> the equivalent
>>> of 'libre' when it comes to services is a tricky issue
>>> in itself).
>>>
>>> Mr Snow, the material you have written looks fantastic.
>>> However I think
>>> we need to leave the iTunes material out of the FM
>>> repository. I
>>> understand you are writing these under commission for
>>> Tactical
>>> Technology Collective - how adamant are they that iTunes
>>> store is
>>> documented? I am sure we can find another ('libre')
>>> solution...
>>>
>>>
>>> adam
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, 2008-03-02 at 15:36 +0000, Simon Yuill wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> I'm just following up on a point in Mr Snow's last
>>> mail:
>>>>
>>>>> i have just been looking into adding ones podcast to
>>> the itunes store
>>>>
>>>> I wonder is it really appropriate that we should be
>>>> including tutorials that encourage use of non-FLOSS
>>>> services such as the iTunes store?
>>>>
>>>> I appreciate FM is taking a 'broad church' approach to
>>>> encouraging FLOSS usage, but to me something like this
>>> is
>>>> maybe crossing a line that we shouldn't. I am asking
>>>> partly as it raises the question of how (or if) we are
>>>> setting our own boundaries for what is appropriate to
>>>> include?
>>>>
>>>> That's not intended as a criticism of Mr Snow and what
>>>> looks like an excellent tutorial overall, but I am
>>>> interested to know what people think ....
>>>>
>>>> best wishes
>>>> Si
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Discuss mailing list
>>>> Discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net
>>>>
>>> http://lists.flossmanuals.net/listinfo.cgi/discuss-flossmanuals.net
>>> --
>>> Adam Hyde
>>> FLOSS Manuals
>>>
>>> http://www.flossmanuals.net
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Discuss mailing list
>>> Discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net
>>> http://lists.flossmanuals.net/listinfo.cgi/discuss-flossmanuals.net
>>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at lists.flossmanuals.net
> http://lists.flossmanuals.net/listinfo.cgi/discuss-flossmanuals.net