Libre and Open Source

Wikimedia Italy believes in Free/Libre and Open Source software as the only good way to freely share in the sum of all knowledge.

This page describes some Free/Libre software in use in the WMIT association, and why.

Survey: LimeSurvey

Section about LimeSurvey. Note that our community calls it "wiki survey".

In 2021, Italian Linux Society (partner of Wikimedia Italy) invested in security auditing on LimeSurvey, with the goal of assuring that there was no excuse for adopting LimeSurvey in Wikimedia Italia or Wikimedia Foundation.

LimeSurvey is now in use in Wikimedia Italia (hosted by our infrastructure), and since 2022 LimeSurvey is also in use in Wikimedia Foundation (hosted by LimeSurvey).

LimeSurvey advantages

• powerful platform really multi-language
• powerful flexible user roles
• 100% data ownership
• GDPR friendly
• no limitations / easy to hack and extend

LimeSurvey disadvantages

• not suitable for fast prototyping or hot changes

About LimeSurvey in Wikimedia projects

• m:LimeSurvey

About LimeSurvey in Wikimedia Italy

• LimeSurvey

Project management: Wikimedia Phabricator

Section related to Wikimedia Phabricator.

Wikimedia Phabricator is a very good piece of software that increase team throughput, focusing about things, identify deadlocks, and with good backlog management.

Wikimedia Phabricator advantages

• accurate sub-task management and visualization (to better triage blocking parts)
• powerful access level system (ability to create private "Spaces", to have private and public Tasks organized together)
• trasparency (no need to login to see something)
• not project-centric (a single Task can involve multiple projects or departments)
• transparency (no need to login to see something)

Wikimedia Phabricator disadvantages

• not so popular or mainstream

About Wikimedia Phabricator

• mw:Phabricator

Videocall: BigBlueButton and Jitsi Meeting

We use BigBlueButton for serious meetings (e.g. assembly) and for staff meetings, since it has very powerful moderation tools, plus a collaborative whiteboard.

The problem with BigBlueButton is that our local service provider is very strict in our integration with Moodle. For example, in our BBB, guests cannot change their names. So, we usually invite special guests in Moodle, so they have a name. That's why sometime Jitsi Meeting is preferred.

Jitsi Meeting is nice because it's very easy and it natively allows streaming to any social network (whatever RMTP URL), and it has advanced audio volume management, for each participant.

File archiviation: Nextcloud

Screenshot of a login with NextCloud.

We are happy with NextCloud. We are so happy with NextCloud that, at the time of writing, we have 2 NextCloud servers.

See also

• m:FLOSS-Exchange