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Wikimedia and KDE Cooperation Announced

eean writes "As reported by KDE Dot News, today Jimmy Wales, chairman of the Wikimedia Foundation, announced the beginning of a cooperation between Wikimedia and the KDE project at LinuxTag in Karlsruhe, Germany. As the first applications, like the media player amaroK, start to integrate Wikipedia content the idea is to create a webservice API to access the information from Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia or Wiktionary."

174 comments

  1. I swear to God... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    they better not name it Kikipedia, or Wikide.

    1. Re:I swear to God... by JonLatane · · Score: 3, Interesting

      What about "KWikipedia." That's kind of catchy, actually.

    2. Re:I swear to God... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or Kakapoodi?

    3. Re:I swear to God... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wikide has a ring to it :)

    4. Re:I swear to God... by jsldub · · Score: 0

      Or How about PooPooKaKa?

    5. Re:I swear to God... by halltk1983 · · Score: 1

      And a store to sell them would be K-Wiki-Mart!!!

      --
      Watch for Penguins, they eat Apples and throw rocks at Windows.
    6. Re:I swear to God... by pHatidic · · Score: 1

      they better not name it Kikipedia

      I'm jewish you insensitive clod

    7. Re:I swear to God... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's funny, I moved here to Karlsruhe from NY a year ago and have been missing being in the center of half of the things I read online. Today morning on my way to uni in the Sbahn I noticed the Linux Tag ad and thought to myself "how cute, they're having a Linux day here in Ka... come home and there it is on Slashdot. I guess trying to run away from being a Geek is useless, it follows you wherever you go.

    8. Re:I swear to God... by Illissius · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's called Knowledge.

      --
      Work is punishment for failing to procrastinate effectively.
    9. Re:I swear to God... by buraianto · · Score: 3, Funny

      They'll name it Kwikipedia. And when you need to look something up on the internet, it will be known as "getting a kwiki".

    10. Re:I swear to God... by jtaylor72 · · Score: 1

      DAMN!!! That's what I was gonna put.

    11. Re:I swear to God... by BonoLeBonobo · · Score: 1

      KDE is going to give its well-known 'K' up. See the new plasma library (http://plasma.bddf.ca/) or the coming tenor search framework... I sounds more serious maybe.

      The K is actually a recognition mark, but *for me* it doesn't sound well for all the names... (Kubuntu, for instance).

      --
      Bonjour !
    12. Re:I swear to God... by Anonymous+Cowpat · · Score: 1

      argh! it could be straight out of the sloashdot story generator

      "...but it's bound to have a stupid name."

      --
      FGD 135
    13. Re:I swear to God... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I seriously doubt that, since you'd know Jewish is supposed to be capitalized and the slur word ends in an E not in an I.

  2. strange alliances by namekuseijin · · Score: 0

    what has KDE anything to do with Wikipedia?

    --
    I don't feel like it...
    1. Re:strange alliances by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Content information, did you even read the post?

    2. Re:strange alliances by Frymaster · · Score: 3, Interesting
      what has KDE anything to do with Wikipedia?

      well, wiki is a big bag of web-accessible content that could fit nicely into desktop applications... personally i would like to be listening to a cd on my computer, say "here come the warm jets" by brian eno, and be able to pull up a short bio on mr. eno, his complete discography, the lyrics to the current song, a list of reviews of the album and artist and the cover art for the album... all without having to fire up my web browser and performing a bunch of search-n-clicks.

    3. Re:strange alliances by Curtman · · Score: 1

      Excellent point. I'm not a KDE user, but this is an awesome idea.

      /me gets started on the Rhythmbox patches.

    4. Re:strange alliances by Jugalator · · Score: 1

      Yup, that's basically what amaroK seem to do.

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    5. Re:strange alliances by Curtman · · Score: 2, Informative

      "/me gets started on the Rhythmbox patches."

      Then quickly discovers it already does this using Allmusic

    6. Re:strange alliances by youknowmewell · · Score: 1

      Since when did Wikipedia stop being an encyclopedia and became a directory for music lyrics and reviews?

    7. Re:strange alliances by Reverend528 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I actually started building a wiki for a CS class with this goal in mind. Rather than a traditional HTML wiki, it was built around RDF data. So not only was it able to dump the data in a machine-readable format, it also had a built-in RDQL query engine that worked over http.

      To conform to the data model, I had to impose restrictions on the input, but the final product is a lot more reliable than screen-scraping HTML, which is something I hope the kde/wikipedia people avoid in this project.

    8. Re:strange alliances by Dionysus · · Score: 1

      say "here come the warm jets" by brian eno, and be able to pull up a short bio on mr. eno, his complete discography, the lyrics to the current song, a list of reviews of the album and artist and the cover art for the album... all without having to fire up my web browser and performing a bunch of search-n-clicks.

      Amarok already do much of this. When I listen to an album, you will see the albumart, you can read the lyrics, other albums by that artist on your system. About the only thing that is missing is the reviews and discography....

      --
      Je ne parle pas francais.
    9. Re:strange alliances by mattyrobinson69 · · Score: 1

      amarok (kde music player) already does this, and it gets lyrics automatically too.

    10. Re:strange alliances by 0xABADC0DA · · Score: 1

      Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a freaking "big bag of web-accessible content". Wiktionary is a freaking dictionary not a 'big bag of langauage factoids'. Etc. Adding a page on some band and having the music player display it is fine, but is sounds like KDE is figuring on putting their freakin' user manuals on wikipedia and adding geeky meta-data to pages. That's just crap.

      It wouldn't bother me except the KDE people seem to suffer from Microsoft's disease, aka a near-total lack of good taste; it's not like KDE isn't 10x more featureful and capable than gnome, it's that it's just gross... it looks like it was designed by multiple geekoids battling each other for maximum dweebiness. Or something like that. I just don't want them to do that to wikipedia, which is cool as hell as-is.

    11. Re:strange alliances by Curtman · · Score: 1

      "Since when did Wikipedia stop being an encyclopedia and became a directory for music lyrics and reviews?"

      Wiki knows all.. Quiet down before it finds out what a jerk you can be.

      Laugh, its a joke and its Friday. (It is here anyway)

    12. Re:strange alliances by Tezkah · · Score: 1

      KDE creates front-end to access Wikipedia Content.

      Who says you won't be able to use this under programs in GNOME? Windows?

      Where does it say that they will change wikipedia to fit in with KDE design? Nowhere? All right.

      Your wikipedia experience will stay the same and there will be advanced features available for those who want it. Capice?

    13. Re:strange alliances by coolGuyZak · · Score: 1
      It isn't. Wikipedia can pull up information such as artist biographies, song orgins, etc.

      It also has uses outside of the song area. For instance, the KStars project wants to export/reference information from Wikipedia. There is an element table app that can do the same thing. There may even be an encyclopedia app that comes out of this. Something like encarta/etc, but on Linux.

    14. Re:strange alliances by 0xABADC0DA · · Score: 1

      Who says having a brain means you have to use it? Nobody? You're okay then.

      They don't say they are going to add f'ed up metadata to wikipedia? Can't happen then. They didn't say it.

      They didn't say my wikipedia experience will change? Can't change then. They didn't say it would change, so it won't.

      Never mind what I do, only what I say. Don't be concerned over the results, only the intentions. That's kind of a f'ed up mentality. Now give me my -1 for responding to flamebait.

    15. Re:strange alliances by coolGuyZak · · Score: 1
      KDE does not ruin all that it touches, so you need not worry about wikipedia. As a matter of fact, there have been some wonderful things to come out of the KDE project. Most notably KHTML, amaroK, and k3b.

      Sure. It's feature-laden. If you want, you can even call it bloated. And it's interface needs help. Remember though: if you don't like the way KDE does things, you always have the ability to join the project and fix it. The same goes for wikipedia. Bitching about it on /. helps noone.

    16. Re:strange alliances by pfafrich · · Score: 1
      The other day I had the urge to draw a graph of the GDP of European Countries. Rather than just type data into a spread sheet I though wouldn't it be cool if I could somehow easily pull this data off the web for instance wikipedia or the CIA's world factbook.

      This got me thinking about how how the semantic web could all fit together to achieve this and similar tasks. There could be a number of components:

      Client applications, graphing is just one possibility. Spreadsheets filled with data from the web, or even a garden design programs pulling data about different sorts of plants.

      Servers, lots of these about with all sort of cool data, world facts, government statistics, performance of super computers.

      Semantic Search Engine: say you want to graph world population, it could be possible to build a search engine which could list available semantic info from all the different sources out there. For example you could type in "Countries:Population", giving URLs of all the web services which contain information on the populations of countries.

      Repository of screen-scrapers. Over the years I've written a number of small scripts to pull data out of a number of different HTML web pages. Why not share these? This might be a quicker method to semanticise the web rather than wait for servers to publish their sites in XML.

      Pull these together with some appropriate standards and imagine the possibilities. Homework assignments in geography, chemistry or any subject with quantative data could be a breeze.

      --
      There are four sorts of people in the world: fools, lunatics, idiots and morons. - Umberto Eco, Foucaut's pendulum.
    17. Re:strange alliances by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      say "here come the warm jets" by brian eno, and be able to pull up a short bio on mr. eno, his complete discography, the lyrics to the current song, a list of reviews of the album and artist and the cover art for the album...

      his home address, directions to the nearest gun dealer...

    18. Re:strange alliances by mabinogi · · Score: 1

      Actually, from what I understand it's the kde-education package that will probably see the most use from this.
      In particular applications like KStars - possibly one of KDE's best (and least publicised) applications.

      Clicking on a star or galaxy and getting the information from Wikipedia from it would be brilliant.

      --
      Advanced users are users too!
  3. Good Idea by spiderworm · · Score: 1

    I hope other projects such as the Gnome project jump on this ship as well.

    1. Re:Good Idea by Yankel · · Score: 3, Funny

      Rumour has it that Linus is going to dump Git and use Wikipedia to host the kernel code.

      Who needs a moderator?

      --
      --- Dan
    2. Re:Good Idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hope other projects such as the Gnome project jump on this ship as well.

      You mixed your metaphors there.

      "Jump on the bandwagon" means that you get onboard with an idea. Back in the day, political candidates would drive around down in a truck w/ a band in it. By getting on the bandwagon, you'd be supporting that candidate.

      to "Jump ship" means the opposite. From deserting a sinking ship.

      Just an FYI for others.

  4. Re:After being linked on slashdot by Masa1991 · · Score: 0

    1st post spam... tut tut tut.

    You can just about imagine WikiPedia looking like a kde desktop...

    At least it wasn't gnome, it might have a little foot for the homepage link.

  5. Wikepedia in the news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny
  6. Playing Tag? by Gertlex · · Score: 4, Funny

    The plan WAS to get all these linux penguins playing tag, but they never quite got started. The rules consulted on Wikipedia.org were changed from moment to moment.

    1. Re:Playing Tag? by Tackhead · · Score: 1
      > The plan WAS to get all these linux penguins playing tag, but they never quite got started. The rules consulted on Wikipedia.org were changed from moment to moment.

      Excuse me, I believe that I may have seen something that appeared like a statement of fact there.

      Some people believed that the plan WAS to get all these linux penguins playing tag, but they never quite got started. Still other people believed that the rules consulted in Wokipedia.org were changed from moment to moment.

      The people on my side of the issue believe I fixed your post, and the people on your side of the issue believe otherwise.

      And neither of us is in a position to argue on behalf of offended Italian-Americans on the issue of people who believe "satire" is the answer to the question "Whadda you calla the rubber things onna you bicycle or-a you car wheels?", but we'll agree to put this stub in here for the benefit of future contributors.

  7. Why? n/t by Walrus99 · · Score: 0

    Why?

  8. Amarok? by El+Icaro · · Score: 0

    Isn't that a media player?

    It'd be better if someone wrote a program that acts as a frontend for wikipedia to not have to open a browser when you want to find out about something. Or a module to have a good info source when chatting on kopete.. click on a button and search for whatever you're looking for.

    1. Re:Amarok? by dusik · · Score: 1

      What's so inconvenient about using a browser?

    2. Re:Amarok? by tuxnduke · · Score: 1

      Amarok is media player, but the clue here assumingly is that amarok is able to show albumcovers for albums, which it fetches from amazon.com. Some lisencing (or something similar) issue forces the Amarok to remove/re-fetch album covers that is has downloaded every 90 days or so, moving to use wikipedia for this propably eases the pain on this detail.

      Also lyrics are fetched from some service in the Internet, but I can quess that providing extra information about the band, composer etc. might later on appear after this do-operation deepens.

    3. Re:Amarok? by Nutria · · Score: 1

      What's so inconvenient about using a browser?

      In general, nothing.

      But browsers are big and fat. (Yes, even FF.) They have to handle Javascript, SSL, plugins & any and all sorts of horendous MS-generated shit-HTML.

      A purpose-built Wikipedia viewer will/should be fast, small and not subject to any security breaches.

      It's the same basic reason why I use GAIM instead of firing up Mozilla and going to http://chat.yahoo.com./

      --
      "I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
    4. Re:Amarok? by ThinkTiM · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah, browsers are getting old. What we need is a program that you can open, and look at information from a variety of differented sources - perhaps they should even have some way of maintaining lists of your favourite sources. And they should invent somekind of markup language so that the information soures can structure their content so that the program knows how to present it. oh wait....

    5. Re:Amarok? by dusik · · Score: 1

      Well, big and fat browsers are indeed big and fat. But what about lightweight browsers like Dillo?

  9. Speaking of amarok by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    When will the taglib people allow m4a contributions into the code, so that I can use amorak to display these files in its collection?

    They really seems to be quite childish in their reasons for why they don't.

    More on topic, Amarok's integration with Wiki is great, though I don't know why they don't allow users to edit the page directly inside amaroK. Indeed, they seem to have removed all the [edit] buttons.

    1. Re:Speaking of amarok by m50d · · Score: 1

      Just out of interest, what are these childish reasons? If it's not wanting to depend on libquicktime I can understand it since it's quite a big library, the best thing to do would be to have the configure script detect it and compile or not compile m4a support as appropriate.

      --
      I am trolling
    2. Re:Speaking of amarok by eean · · Score: 3, Informative

      They were removed just to give a more clean interface. There's an icon to open the page in a web browser if you want to edit. amaroK is a media player, we wanted to avoid turning it into a full-blown web browser. :)

    3. Re:Speaking of amarok by cmbofh · · Score: 2, Funny

      You're mean. You're destroying people's prejudice that KDE can only add features and bloat.

      Good decision, BTW.

  10. Thank God by captnitro · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Finally! This is something I've been preaching for a long time.

    While I understand it isn't (directly) the goal of open-source to compete with Company, Inc., the next generation of computing tools is going to be heavily service-oriented. That is to say: open-source has thus far concentrated on making software "products" -- applications, utilities, libraries, and so on. In a service-oriented community, though, open content is just as important as the tools that use it.

    Furthermore, I like to see when open-source products doing a little more -- wait for it -- synergy. (Shoot me.) Thus far, open projects have, apart from sharing code and libraries, stayed mostly to themselves. But partnerships like this are absolutely beneficial to creating a cohesive, seamless user experience. Via services, you create an entire open "platform" that isn't just the tools, but the content that backs it up. It also creates an entirely new market for companies to support open-source software.

    1. Re:Thank God by Mad_Rain · · Score: 0, Redundant

      Furthermore, I like to see when open-source products doing a little more -- wait for it -- synergy.

      Seems I was trhinking along similar lines. :)

      (Shoot me.)

      Dammit, I guess I'm next then.

      --
      "What do you think?" "I think 'What, do you think?!'"
    2. Re:Thank God by Profane+MuthaFucka · · Score: 1

      synergy

      Bingo!

      --
      Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
    3. Re:Thank God by corpsiclex · · Score: 1

      In soviet russia, content backs up tools?

      --

      eBayDig 1s a typo saerch engien
  11. Why Amarock and not Konqueror or word processing? by climb_no_fear · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I don't want Amarock searching Wikipedia every time I'm listening to my mp3s. I already know who sang the song - they're my legal copies (not living in US).

    Wouldn't it be a better use of resources to incorporate this into a browser or word processor? You could look highlight any word(s) on the web page and, like Firefox searches Google, search Wiki.

    Wouldn't that be nice?

  12. Trillian does this. by krgallagher · · Score: 3, Informative

    I use Trillian as an IM client and it does something similar to this. I get underlined links with more information from Wikimedia if words in the message match an existing wiki topic. I think it is pretty cool.

    --

    Insert Generic Sig Here:

    1. Re:Trillian does this. by pherthyl · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm not entirely convinved of the usefulness of this feature.. I tried it once and thought it was ultimately useless. Much better would be just to have a context menu with a "Look up in Wikipedia" entry for any word.

      How often do you really need to look up a word in an IM conversation? All this feature does is place useless load on the wikipedia servers because people are bored and are mousing over the links to look at definitions for mundane words.

    2. Re:Trillian does this. by mrogers · · Score: 1

      Or search for highlighted text if you middle-click it, as in Firefox...

    3. Re:Trillian does this. by presroi · · Score: 1

      Your example was one of the reasons why the cooperation was made. As time goes by, a number of programms in and around the KDE project will use Wikipedia content more or less. Konversation, a really nice IRC client now has a feature that converts text like "Tomorrow I have an appointment in [[Bruxelles]]" into "Tomorrow I have an appointment in Bruxelles"

      (so far, it does not fix spelling and grammar errors yet, my sentence might have been wrong but you might get the point.)

      The services itself (all hail SOAP) will not be limited to KDE, of course but the idea just gets beyond a SOAP interface at wikipedia.org. As it is mentioned at meta, the KDE-library will be able to rely on a local mirror in case the computer is not online. From a application programmer's point of view, it will be much more comfortable.

      I am sure that Danimo appreciates any feedback to his project Knowledge

      Feel free to insert your suggestions how to integrate wikipedia content in your favourite applications.

    4. Re:Trillian does this. by antdude · · Score: 1

      You know, I found that feature annoying. There should be a way to highlight a word/phrase and do a a wiki lookup like Google lookup in Mozilla (forget which extension that is).

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    5. Re:Trillian does this. by Suppafly · · Score: 1

      no wonder wikipedia is always needing money for bandwidth, i wonder how many hits they get from IM clients looking to see whether a topic has a wiki entry or not.

    6. Re:Trillian does this. by FryGuy1013 · · Score: 1

      none i think. It uses a local copy of a dictionary file to check every word. It only does lookups when you mouseover or click on the underlined word.

      --
      bananas like monkeys.
  13. Great! by TheStick · · Score: 3, Funny
    Let's just hope they won't add integrated Wikipedia to KTeaTime

    "Earl Grey tea is a black tea blend, which gets a distinctive flavour and aroma from bergamot oil..."

    1. Re:Great! by m50d · · Score: 3, Funny

      Why not? I've got about six boxes of tea in my cupboard from various sources with little idea what each is like without trying them. It'd be nice to have my tray applet suggest what might be suitable.

      --
      I am trolling
    2. Re:Great! by GweeDo · · Score: 3, Funny

      You are new to Wikipedia aren't you? The entry should look something more like this:
      "Earl Grey tea is a black tea ..."
      Hope this helps you fit in more.

    3. Re:Great! by Amiasian · · Score: 1

      Actually, you know if this also had a text-to-speech feature that'd read things in a voice somewhat reminiscent of Majel Barrett and have integrated speech recognition for queries you'd have the nerd's ultimate dream.

  14. This could be really useful... by Mad_Rain · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I've looked at a bunch of different ways of playing and organizing my small mp3 collection (is 20GB still small?). Amarok has been one of my favorite aps when I'm using my linux desktop. When I've set up my file server to stream mp3s over the web to my office computer (running Windows), I've used Jinzora.

    Now, both of these programs use a MySQL database backend to help organize and catagorize mp3s, and use id3 tag information. I think it'd be an absolute joy to have them share the same data, instead of using two redundant databases. Perhaps as this project matures, we could see this become a standardized format for multiple projects to use, so the information can be shared and edited more easily.

    --
    "What do you think?" "I think 'What, do you think?!'"
    1. Re:This could be really useful... by scapor · · Score: 1

      Yeah, 20Gb _is_ small :)

    2. Re:This could be really useful... by johnnybaluba · · Score: 1

      Well, actually he wrote 20 GB which is 8 times as much as you wrote (20 Gb). bits and bytes....

      On the other hand, to the OP: if 20GB used to be a small collection it most definately still is; people's mp3 collections don't shrink....

    3. Re:This could be really useful... by dusik · · Score: 1

      The statement "is still small" is ambiguous. I interpreted it the same way too, at first, which didn't make sense due to the reason you mention. The other interpretation is "as you increase the size of the collection, does it cease to be 'small' before the 20 GB mark or is it still 'small' at 20 GB?"

      In other words, we're not talking about our perception of 'smallness' of an mp3 collection as depending on time but as depending on size. It's a function of at least those two variables.

    4. Re:This could be really useful... by Mad_Rain · · Score: 1

      To help clarify - Back in the day (3-4 years ago) I thought my 20 GB was fairly large (it took up an entire harddrive in my big ol' beige desktop box, at the time), but then was shown the wonders of P2P and a couple of servers full of mp3s (100's of GB) and realized that in the grand scheme of things, it was small. Now my collection (I've added some and subtracted some) can fit on an iPod. So not only has the collection size remained "small", it's physical space has gotten smaller. :)

      --
      "What do you think?" "I think 'What, do you think?!'"
    5. Re:This could be really useful... by Doctor+Crumb · · Score: 1

      I prefer JuK; I have no idea what sort of black magic it uses to index files, but it sure isn't MySQL, and it is reasonably fast to index and blindingly fast to search/filter/organise.

  15. Will this affect our Leaders at Google? by HaFBaKeD · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It seems this kind of collaboration, in a lot of ways, will allow people to bypass having to launch a browser and use our favorite search engine to find the information they are looking for. Granted, its only from one resource right now, but for the masses, in most cases, they'd probably be pretty happy with that. Cutting down on the time spent trying to find relevant google results alone is a huge bonus, as many out there have trouble properly narrowing down their searches to begin with.

    --
    "A war over religion is like fighting over who has the best imaginary friend."
    1. Re:Will this affect our Leaders at Google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      don't you mean "Kollaboration"?

    2. Re:Will this affect our Leaders at Google? by m50d · · Score: 3, Funny

      I'm sure KDE's competitors at Gnome will rush to collaborate with Google in response, given how their name starts

      --
      I am trolling
    3. Re:Will this affect our Leaders at Google? by halltk1983 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Would it be Gnoogle or Goome? I'm partial to Gnoogle myself... it sounds cuddly.

      --
      Watch for Penguins, they eat Apples and throw rocks at Windows.
    4. Re:Will this affect our Leaders at Google? by JonLatane · · Score: 1

      It will then become GGoogle. And the web search results page will say "GGGGGGGooooooogle."

    5. Re:Will this affect our Leaders at Google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, Wikipedia now use Mono to power its searches -- which uses the same search engine as Beagle (a GNOME app)... which already does this sort of integrated Wikipedia business. In fact, the only thing Beagle lacks compared to this article is the hype and the slashdot editor willing to breathlessly post it as though it's a big breakthrough.

    6. Re:Will this affect our Leaders at Google? by m50d · · Score: 1

      Beagle is one program on its own. Having a standard API and a whole desktop adopting it is more significant.

      --
      I am trolling
    7. Re:Will this affect our Leaders at Google? by MyIS · · Score: 1

      Google relies on ads for its revenue. So they will either want licensing fees or ad display for this sort of collaboration. The current web-services API they expose shows just that - they intend for corporations to license bulk quantities of it; the free usage of it is mostly for PR/mindshare value.

      --
      http://zero-to-enterprise.blogspot.com/
    8. Re:Will this affect our Leaders at Google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      An API to access Wikipedia is child's play -- to be frank about it.

      Beagle is a far more wide-ranging and ambitious project than "just one program" as you so ignorantly dismiss it. For a start, other GNOME apps send "hints" to it and looks up and correlates information from many sources. Not only does it look up information, it also predicts and attempts to be ready before you need it. Maybe you should check it out before commenting further... although having just checked out your posting history, I'm not confident you'll do that.

    9. Re:Will this affect our Leaders at Google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think, although it deviates slightly from the tried and true Slashdot +5 joke where you just combine a few letters of one name with the rest of the other...

      Gnoogie

      would be a perfect name for this colaboration ;)

    10. Re:Will this affect our Leaders at Google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're not funny... you know that deep down, don't you?

    11. Re:Will this affect our Leaders at Google? by m50d · · Score: 1

      Huh? What's that supposed to mean? I dislike gnome, but if you read my journal you'll see I tried it, repeatedly in fact.

      --
      I am trolling
    12. Re:Will this affect our Leaders at Google? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It means that not knowing something seems to be no barrier to you posting about it as if you do. I think the right choice of word is: Bullshitter.

  16. A very good thing by m50d · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Wikipedia in your media player is one of the things you don't notice you were missing until you have it, after which it's indispensible. I hope other projects start to take advantage of the bindings, hopefully not just within KDE but elsewhere as well. This should benefit everyone.

    --
    I am trolling
    1. Re:A very good thing by Brandybuck · · Score: 1

      KDE teaming up with history's rudest online community is not a good decision. We're talking about Wikipedia here, whose motto is "edit it yourself you fuckwit!"

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
    2. Re:A very good thing by m50d · · Score: 1
      And KDE's isn't "code it yourself you fuckwit!" :)

      (To be fair, Charles Samuels was very helpful when I was actually writing something, but the replies to feature requests for other programs are often less so)

      --
      I am trolling
    3. Re:A very good thing by Brandybuck · · Score: 1

      KDE (and virtually every other Open Source project)...

      User: I found a bug.
      Developer: Great, log it in Bugzilla!

      Wikipedia...

      User: I found an error.
      Editor: You fuckwit, why didn't you fix it yourself!

      Do you see the difference?

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
  17. Re:Why Amarock and not Konqueror or word processin by Dionysus · · Score: 1

    I would think this new Wikipedia extension would be implemented as a KIOSlave. So it wouldn't matter which KDE group implemented it, all KDE programs would have access to the functionality.

    --
    Je ne parle pas francais.
  18. Useful for technical apps by bloblu · · Score: 1

    This is a great idea! It's going to help technical application like RKWard (http://rkward.sourceforge.net/, a GUI for the R statistical language: http://r-project.org/), integrate informations from wikipedia. In the field of statistics, help is a big issue. It's quite difficult for F/OSS to compete with SAS or SPSS. KDE/Wikipedia is certainly the way to go to fill the gap.

  19. Re:Why Amarock and not Konqueror or word processin by amide_one · · Score: 4, Informative

    > Wouldn't it be a better use of resources to incorporate this into a browser or word processor?

    AbiWord has already done for some time.

    > I already know who sang the song - they're my legal copies

    Yes, but this isn't about looking up the song somehow to see who sang it (try MusicBrainz for that). It's about looking up the band to read about their history or other news. (Wikipedia does have articles on a surprising number of bands.) And nothing says that amaroK (not Amarock) would insist on popping up a Konqueror window with the results from every new song -- lots of features can be disabled as a preference, or not even compiled in in the first place. (In the same way that you'd only want your word processor to do this with words you highlight instead of *every* word you type.)

    And of course there's already a list of other KDE stuff that could integrate this to benefit from information that's already been collected, instead of duplicating information on stars and chemical elements and countries (for instance).

    So it's *already* been incorporated into a browser *and* word processor (there's a search plugin for Firefox); why not add it to amaroK and Kalzium and KStars and.... ?

  20. Re:Why Amarock and not Konqueror or word processin by Lemming+Mark · · Score: 3, Informative

    /me compiled the Amarok beta earlier today.

    It doesn't do the Wikipedia lookup unless you ask it to - normal operation is the same as ever. It works very nicely :-)

  21. Awesome! by bigberk · · Score: 1

    Now wikipedia can also become overcomplicated and sluggish with background services nobody needs!

    kidding... though I'm an xfce fan myself

  22. I am not familar with amaroK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    but looking at the screenshots I would say Apple has another lawsuit possibility iTunes anyone? ;-)

    1. Re:I am not familar with amaroK by coolGuyZak · · Score: 1

      If you have used both applications, you will immediately know that amaroK is definitely *not* iTunes. Superficially, they do appear similar. However, the way they act is not the same. amaroK... makes more sense. You have to use it to understand. (Heh... sorta like some illicit substances, I hear).

  23. right idea, wrong example by X_Bones · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Who needs media player to interact with an encyclopedia? I already know who sings the songs I listen to. I've already bookmarked the band's web site, which has more photos and lyrics than Wikipedia could collect. I've seen the IMDB entry on the movie I'm watching, or I have the box it came in. What's the point?

    Now, something like an e-book reader tied to a service like Wiktionary would be far more useful. I think a lot more people would take advantage of something like this (particularly those with handleld wireless devices).

    1. Re:right idea, wrong example by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Who needs media player to interact with an encyclopedia? I already know who sings the songs I listen to. I've already bookmarked the band's web site, which has more photos and lyrics than Wikipedia could collect. I've seen the IMDB entry on the movie I'm watching, or I have the box it came in.

      In answer to your question ("who needs a media player to interact with an encyclopedia?"), I believe the answer is "someone who isn't you". Or do you immediately reject applications if they don't, in some way, benefit you personally?

    2. Re:right idea, wrong example by Mornelithe · · Score: 1

      I've already bookmarked the band's web site, which has more photos and lyrics than Wikipedia could collect.

      You, sir, are in the minority.

      --

      I've come for the woman, and your head.

    3. Re:right idea, wrong example by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 2, Insightful
      I've already bookmarked the band's web site, which has more photos and lyrics than Wikipedia could collect.
      Yes, in a 800x600 Flash applet, which loads in a popup window. Thankyouverymuchbutnothanks.
    4. Re:right idea, wrong example by testerus · · Score: 1

      I already know who sings the songs I listen to. So you never listen to the radio?

  24. Microsoft to do the same with Encarta? by CyricZ · · Score: 2, Informative

    I suppose that Microsoft will copy this idea by linking their desktop services with Encarta.

    Indeed, I would be very hesistant to trust their results. While Wikipedia's veracity has often been questioned, at least it is a public effort with the input of hundreds of thousands of people. Encarta, on the other hand, is a corporate effort without the public involvement. The risk of corporate nogoodery is far greater.

    --
    Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
    1. Re:Microsoft to do the same with Encarta? by holt · · Score: 1

      Microsoft Office on both Windows (2003) and the Mac (2004) integrates with Encarta, along with some of Microsoft's other online services. So it is, in fact, F/OSS that's copying Microsoft.

      (IHBT)

    2. Re:Microsoft to do the same with Encarta? by pdbaby · · Score: 1

      Not that I like Encarta but Microsoft probably employ professional editors and consult experts of the field they're writing about...

      --
      Global symbol "$deity" requires explicit package name at line 2. - If only $scripture started "use strict;"
    3. Re:Microsoft to do the same with Encarta? by vettemph · · Score: 1

      Change from:
      The risk of corporate nogoodery is far greater.
      Change to:
      The corporate nogoodery is well documented for this convicted monopoly.

      --
      The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
    4. Re:Microsoft to do the same with Encarta? by rpdillon · · Score: 1

      Best sig ever.

  25. Re:Why Amarock and not Konqueror or word processin by 0kComputer · · Score: 1

    Apparently the latest version of Trillian will highlight words with links to their definition in Wikipedia. So as you chat with your friends, you become a living breathing dictionary. That's a rather nice feature for IM conversations.

    --
    Top 10 Reasons To Procrastinate
    10.
  26. WebServices -- NOT limited to KDE. by roard · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Well, if they create webservices for wikipedia/wiktionary, everybody will be able to use it, not just KDE ... I don't see what will prevent me to write a GNUstep client for example :-)

    1. Re:WebServices -- NOT limited to KDE. by noamsml · · Score: 1

      nothing.

  27. amaroK's previous web integration by Dasher42 · · Score: 1

    As it is, amaroK comes by default with a tag to pull up lyrics for songs. It's very nicely integrated, and convenient. Given my preference for obscure indie bands, I've been doing a lot of submitting - again through that same interface. Point is, the developer(s) of amaroK have certainly noticed the KDE project's emphasis on integration, and they've got their thinking caps on.

    Now what I'd like to see is blog/journal integration with contacts. KDE's use of the standard address book for mail and IM is a good start; let's get to the point where the contacts themselves are the focus, and any given way to communicate a few clicks from the contact. KMail and Kopete parts can make it happen.

    1. Re:amaroK's previous web integration by coolGuyZak · · Score: 1

      You might want to think about submitting a request for it, then.

  28. noooooo! by ImaLamer · · Score: 1

    I have cobuyitaphobia you insensitive clod!

  29. AbiWord does this already... by codergeek42 · · Score: 1, Informative

    Though it's still only alpha or beta quality it does does a WikiPedia-lookup plugin that works rather well.

    http://www.abisource.com/twiki/bin/view/Abiword/Pl uginMatrix

  30. It's all fine as long as ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As long as KDE sticks to their fully customizable ways (i.e. lets me disable stuff like this) then it wouldn't bother me at all.

    Maybe it's time to start working on a KDE Lite. I use KDE, but I end up ripping out or disabling a lot of stuff.

  31. Re:After being linked on slashdot by cuzality · · Score: 1

    the whole wiki will probably be repalced by "FR1ST PS0T"

    Close.

    A look at the article's history shows that within about 15 minutes of this /. story being posted, user 198.64.22.167 replaced all the content with the words "GNAA Fails It". The article was reverted within 3 minutes by registered user Get It.

  32. Bandwidth by slapout · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So, on one hand Wikipedia needs more bandwidth ( http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/10/235520 2 )...

    And on the other, they are doing things like this that will increase the load on their servers...

    (Then again, I never understood why people mow their lawns and then water them. :-)

    --
    Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
    1. Re:Bandwidth by Baloo+Ursidae · · Score: 1
      (Then again, I never understood why people mow their lawns and then water them. :-)

      I never understood why anybody would plant grass on their lawns. Douglas firs are nicer looking and lower maintenance. Then again, the Douglas fir lawn is an Oregonian thing, you're not expected to understand this.

      --
      Help us build a better map!
    2. Re:Bandwidth by FhnuZoag · · Score: 1

      If more people use it, they might get more donations, and so be more able to get better/more servers up.

    3. Re:Bandwidth by Reemi · · Score: 1


      It has been discussed to store specific content off-line. E.g. an application as KStars could store all information belonging to a certain class (stars/planets) offline for future reference.

      I'd imagine a kde-wiki iso for download with the next release.

    4. Re:Bandwidth by CyberKnet · · Score: 1

      Probably because grass doesnt grow to be three times the size of your house and pose a substantial risk if it falls onto your house during a storm.

      But I could be wrong. Or bitter that a tree just fell in my own back yard and cost me a ton of money...

      --
      Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor - Ovidius
    5. Re:Bandwidth by Baloo+Ursidae · · Score: 1
      Probably because grass doesnt grow to be three times the size of your house and pose a substantial risk if it falls onto your house during a storm.

      Only if you're dumb enough to mow down all the trees around the stand near your home. Trees need other trees to break the wind for them.

      --
      Help us build a better map!
    6. Re:Bandwidth by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course, some of us never had a stand of trees in the first place. Some of us moved into pre-existing residential nightmares.

      As always, mileage varies with particular circumstance...

  33. Re:graphical install? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    what

  34. Kdict and Kthesaurus by Colin+Smith · · Score: 1

    I use them every day, Kencylopedia would also be handy.

    --
    Deleted
    1. Re:Kdict and Kthesaurus by BonoLeBonobo · · Score: 1

      You have a kind of "KEncyclopedia" here, written with Qt: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Danimo/Knowl edge

      --
      Bonjour !
  35. Trillian displaying Wikipedia articles by matt+me · · Score: 1
    Yeah, is great fun, enables you to bluff your way through any conversation.

    Tom: Have ever heard any Dream Theater? (At this point,I hover my cursor over the highlighted phrase and it displays the first few paragraphs of the wikipedia article in a tooltip)
    Matt: Yeah, prog rock right? I borrowed their Train of Thought album once.

    Much quicker than switching to Firefox and searching Wikipedia.

  36. More information and photos by BReflection · · Score: 2, Informative
    --
    python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
  37. Re:graphical install? by dusik · · Score: 1

    emerge kde

    (not quite graphical, but pretty easy; it does take a couple days, though...)

  38. Re:As KDE sinks further into shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Right, because usability and aesthetic qualities are absolutes defined in your small world.

  39. Handy indeed. :) by Balinares · · Score: 1

    1) Open the minicli window in KDE (Alt+F2)
    2) Type in 'wp <term to look up>'
    3) Prof-- err, Kencyclopedia!

    You're welcome. :)

    --

    -- B.
    This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
  40. KDE documentation in a Wikipedia format by Khalid · · Score: 1

    Now what would be cool is to translae the KDE documentation translated into the Wikmedia format. That would be really kick ass. I have always taught thatWiki is the ideal documentation tool, by it's dynamic nature, you could add topics, correct documentation, add examples Etc. à la PHP doc for instance or Faq-o-Matic. Linuxdoc can also profit from this, although I believe it's largly dead ?? by now.

  41. Shoulda done it with GNOME by foreverdisillusioned · · Score: 2, Funny

    I can't believe no one has pointed out the blindingly obvious GNOME counterpart--Gikipedia. "Geeky-pedia."

    The marketing practically writes itself.

  42. Re:forget about "Web Services", what about REST? by Matt+Clare · · Score: 1
    You seeme to have quite the grudge here. Good luck with that.

    MediaWiki perl code and bad MySQL database.
    Media Wiki is a PHP/MySQL project, not a Perl/MySQL project.
    --
    .\.\att Clare
  43. KDE and Wikipedia by jjshoe · · Score: 1

    Well I don't know what to think at this point. As part of google's SoC i basicaly suggested something similar to kde. I'm left wondering if this has been in the works or if they "took" the idea from me?

    Wonderfull way to encourage me to code open source.

    --
    -- botsex is {grep;touch;strip;unzip;head;mount} /dev/girl -t {wet;fsck;fsck;yes;yes;yes;umount} {/de
    1. Re:KDE and Wikipedia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I remember reading on KDE's blog site about this a good while ago (several months ago). One of the developers was working on a front end to Wikipedia, so this looks like its the end result of that.

    2. Re:KDE and Wikipedia by mpupu · · Score: 1

      I remember having seen this proposed as a bounty somewhere (kubuntu?). However, the important part is the implementation, not the idea. I understand your feelings, but I think the most probable thing is someone has been working on this for a while, and now you see the results.

      And if the idea was innovative enough, you could have patented it, right? ;)

    3. Re:KDE and Wikipedia by sebr · · Score: 1

      Wikipedia integration with amaroK was commited at: 18/04/05 08:24 am and Google Summer of Code was launched on June 1st 2005. So, we got in there an entire one and a half months before summer of code even started ;-) Nice try buddy.

    4. Re:KDE and Wikipedia by tackat · · Score: 1

      Actually the KDE/Wikipedia Cooperation has been in the works since more than two months.

      Greetings,
      Torsten Rahn

  44. A preview of this cooperation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Amarok already have these wiki-improvements, you can see an example in my friend isaac weblog.

    --
    Warp Networks

  45. Wikipedia Rocks by Etriaph · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I think this is an awesome idea as a KDE user. I love using Wikipedia, and have often spent hours just reading through inane trivia I've found there. Integrating this with a desktop application is a smart idea, and I honestly can't believe someone hasn't thought about it before.

    I hope GNOME and the folks in Redmond follow this lead and create a Wikipedia desktop app to interact with this webservice.

    --
    "It's here, but no one wants it." - The Sugar Speaker
  46. Re:graphical install? by WilliamSChips · · Score: 1
    emerge porthole
    and then use that to install kde

    (well, okay, it just puts the emerge output in a window, but porthole is a GUI program)
    --
    Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
  47. rtfa by eean · · Score: 1

    Look at the screen shot in the dot.kde.org article to see how it works in amaroK. Knowledge is another KDE project that will act as a frontend to Wikipedia.

  48. You fail it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You fail it

  49. Re:graphical install? by eean · · Score: 1

    It already has. Just use one of the numerous distributions that have graphical installs.

  50. Re:amarok-1.3.1-beta1 compilation fails by eean · · Score: 1

    I'm guessing there's some sort of binary incompatibilty. Add --without-arts to the ./configure.

  51. Nevermind tight integration with applications.... by JaF893 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I want to be able to download Wikipedia. Obviously this would rape the Wikipedia servers but they could do a monthly release via bit torrent. I think this would be really useful and they could even sell copies of it on DVD.

  52. If only it worked. by Grendel+Drago · · Score: 1

    It'd be nice if Wikipedia provided lighter versions of their pages, so that they didn't look like shit in Dillo.

    'Cause it's pretty damn hard to read right now.

    --grendel drago

    --
    Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
  53. Request link screwed up by coolGuyZak · · Score: 1
    Wow... that was retarded... I frogot to put "http" in front... don't use that link.

    Here's the real one: http://bugs.kde.org

    I guess that's what I get for posting in haste.

  54. FIX YOUR BROKEN SYSTEM! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    .. and use bugs.kde.org for proper bugreporting!

  55. Oh Canada! by andersh · · Score: 0
  56. A thought on the use of this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    To some extent I like the right click producing 'What is this?' in Windows.

    I think it could be useful to have a simlar function available in other desktop enviroments. Perhaps this right click 'what is this?' could draw up information from a wiki source.

    I think that could be very useful for configuration applications in particular.

  57. Google? by andersh · · Score: 0

    Maybe this will make it interesting enough for Google to help them? Just a few ads...

  58. Uniting it with HELP by mnmn · · Score: 3, Interesting

    What if KDE's own manuals and help system were rsynced with its original data in wikipedia? What if all manuals were rsynced from wikis?

    We could type 'man ls' and get the latest page with comments and all.

    Sure beats submitting manpage patches to developers.

    Even better, like in wikipedia, you'd click on a word in a manual page, and you'd get the man page of that manual and all related pages...

    Now combine that with the google search engine.

    --
    "Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
    1. Re:Uniting it with HELP by kv9 · · Score: 1

      on a related note the php manual already has that feature (example) and at times its quite helpful.

  59. Re:Nevermind tight integration with applications.. by kv9 · · Score: 1

    and what exactly is stopping you from downloading? ok theres no torrents but still. im sure they will serve torrents too if the need would arise.

  60. Re:Interesting: Wikipedia definition for KDE by xuutx · · Score: 0, Troll

    I could rant and rave about the above troll, instead I will just point out that KDE comes to you at little or not cost, and you still choose to complain?

    Excuse me, Mr.. how much did you pay for Windows XP and its bloated GUI? Or, how many times have you paid for the same GUI since Windows 95?

    Wow talk about a big difference.

  61. MODERATION ABUSE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Please note the subject of this article does concern amaroK, the media player:
    "As the first applications, like the media player amaroK, start to integrate Wikipedia content..."
    The parent post is therefore on-topic .

    Thank you to attentive moderators and meta-moderators.

  62. No, great idea, if Knowledge is extended... by UnapprovedThought · · Score: 1

    to share articles over a P2P protocol. Right now it is just an app that stores content offline. With proper checksumming, it could change the way the content is delivered and reduce Wikipedia's bandwidth bill significantly.

  63. Re:Nevermind tight integration with applications.. by Skuldo · · Score: 1

    This is already available here: http://download.wikimedia.org/ I heard there are plans to release a printed edition and other formats

  64. Even worse...much worse... by onemorechip · · Score: 1
    --
    But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
  65. OpenOffice Wikipedia Plug-in by LibrePensador · · Score: 1
    --
    Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software
  66. Re:Why Amarock and not Konqueror or word processin by Daengbo · · Score: 1

    http://oooconv.free.fr/wikipedia/
    OOoConv's OOoWikipedia plugin...

  67. Re:Nevermind tight integration with applications.. by Mornelithe · · Score: 1

    Knowledge is in development. It's a KDE-based offline encyclopedia application for wikipedia.

    --

    I've come for the woman, and your head.

  68. Re:amarok-1.3.1-beta1 compilation fails by WWWWolf · · Score: 2, Insightful

    For the sake of everything that is good and holy, let aRts die already. Nuke it. Nuke it without mercy. Let no bit stand atop another. Walk now amongst the ruins of the evil hack as the new Scourge of God. Drive now the thrice-cursed band-aid solutions to cheap hardware problems from our sight, nay, from the sights of every man, woman and child in this world.

    And compile --without-arts or whatever it's called in amaroK.

    Or just do what everyone else does and wait for 1.3 final, but even there, disabling aRts is definitely the way to go. GStreamer all the way! =)

  69. Klustered Katastrophe by zwt · · Score: 1

    Everything about KDE is already so kramped and unkonventional as it is. I don't see why they would want to overkrowd their menus, windows, applications , etc. even more... Despite it's more polished look than Gnome (which is of course up for argument), it's ruining the user experience by not keeping things simple.

    --
    Pay no attention to what the critics say. Remember, a statue has never been set up in honor of a critic! - Jean Sibelius
  70. That's all well and good... by Phil+John · · Score: 1

    ...until someone goatse trolls it and you "man ls" just as your boss walks in :o(

    --
    I am NaN