[dannyw]

Wikipedian here. We edit because we're contributing to free information. Free information means anyone can use it for any purpose, including commercially.

I think this move is great. I'd rather have this money go to the foundation, than ParseAPIco.

[ROARosen]

> Free information means anyone can use it ...

Of course anyone can use it commercially and for whichever reason they like. But by creating a walled 'premium' offering you are going against the premise of 'anyone can use it' since not anyone can use the commercial api.

Surely if Google or anyone wants the api so badly they're willing to pay for it, they should fund it. Why does that mean it needs to be 'locked'?

[abbe98]

Google and co will essentially pay for the SLA, free access will be available through Wikimedia Cloud Services and I'm sure that the team is investigating how to make the API available to the wider public.

[pimlottc]

Devils advocate: Google clearly already has a working pipeline to import and format Wikipedia data for its needs. Why would they stop using it and start paying Wikipedia? Will Wikipedia be able to build an enterprise API thats faster/cheaper/more reliable/more scalable than the internal one build by one of the world’s top engineering companies?

No doubt the enterprise API will add attractive value for smaller companies without the resources to process the raw dumps but I’m skeptical that this will convert Google et al into well-paying customers. Unless they start restricting the free dumps...

[abbe98]

While Google already have a pipeline in place the bottleneck of that pipeline is on the Wikimedia end of things, this project addresses that. No more scraping and data dumps when they can stream changes over gRPC. WMF didn't build this without consultation with these big companies.

[sunir]

What is the difference between a funder and a paying customer?

They are both users who are paying for the service.

The difference is that funders have political power over the project beyond the scope of their own use.

Customers are always better and more fair to everyone than funders.

[ROARosen]

A service that's available to the 'public' is called a 'public service' even though it is funded by 'funders'. But a service that's available only to 'customers' is by definition not a 'public' service.

[fny]

I'm another Wikipedian and donor, and I'm pissed about this.

Creating an enterprise product with enterprise funding means Wikimedia is directing energy and resources to serve enterprise alone. These APIs were likely demanded by larger tech firms, and I imagine they discussed with Wikimedia the possibility of creating a commercial service. Now they got what they wanted, it won't be a public resource, and it's design won't be guided by the public either.

Now the lines are very blurry. A wiser strategy would have been to create a separate private entity.

[vincvinc]

> A wiser strategy would have been to create a separate private entity.

Unless I am mistaken, seems like they did do that?

"the foundation’s newly created subsidiary, Wikimedia LLC"

https://www.wired.com/story/wikipedia-finally-asking-big-tec...

[cblconfederate]

see you in a year, after you hear stories about how wikipedia had to redact information that was sensitive to their valued customers