5 ms·

What's the main target market for this kind of thing?

arthurcolle 13y ago
Collectors.
ics 13y ago
One interesting case I can think of is for institutions which for some reason or another want complete control over article creation/deletion/modification but without the need for recreating the entire knowledge database from scratch.
gnosygnu 13y ago
I personally use it for traveling. There are a few other applications as well: - low-bandwidth availability, particularly in less-developed regions of the world - censorship evasion - security concerns. some users want to access Wikipedia without exposing their machine to the internet There are probably a few others I'm missing....
- greenyoda 13y ago
  "censorship evasion..." Unfortunately, having your own copy of Wikipedia could also be used to enable censorship. For example, a fundamentalist school could have their own version of Wikipedia from which they've purged all articles about evolution, etc. Then they could configure their firewall to block the real Wikipedia.
  - gnosygnu 13y ago
    Agreed. However, I think it would be less work for them to block access through firewall policy, than to remove them from XOWA. By and large, for most private individuals, an offline app would allow them to evade censorship. I'd hope that this benefit outweighs the risk of the other's abuse.
    - Someone 13y ago
      A firewall would not hide the fact that censoring takes place. You would have to rewrite content to do that. That might be easier in batch, especially if you are going to do NLP to make cut up sentences grammatical.
      - gnosygnu 13y ago
        Ahh.... That's pretty devious. I was thinking of blocking the entire article, not rewriting content. Still not worth the work IMHO, but who knows what censorship servants would do.
thejosh 13y ago
Zombie invasion fanatics, for when the zombies invade you still have an archive of knowledge.
- alcari 13y ago
  This is only part of why my local file server has a recent wikipedia dump.
  - defective 13y ago
    Accidental time travel?
    - alcari 13y ago
      Accidental time travel of my entire house, yes. I really should copy it over to my laptop, as that's a fair bit more likely to be useful if I end up in the past without a source of electricity.
ivanca 13y ago
Schools without internet access; unfortunately those are still millions.
mdda 13y ago
Machine Learning
ddeck 13y ago
Perhaps not the main market, but prisons. Since March 2013, inmates of the Bellevue prison in Gorgier, Switzerland can request access to an uncensored offline copy of the French Wikipedia, based on the Kiwix software. Internet access is severely restricted for the prisoners, most of whom serve long-term sentences [1] [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_June_2013#Offline_Wikipedia_for_prisoners http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_June_20...
evolve2k 13y ago
Tech Camps like railscamps.org which often don't have internet access.
evolve2k 13y ago
People living in very remote areas, with no phone/net access like some outback parts of Australia.

Collectors.

ics 13y ago

One interesting case I can think of is for institutions which for some reason or another want complete control over article creation/deletion/modification but without the need for recreating the entire knowledge database from scratch.

gnosygnu 13y ago

I personally use it for traveling. There are a few other applications as well: - low-bandwidth availability, particularly in less-developed regions of the world - censorship evasion - security concerns. some users want to access Wikipedia without exposing their machine to the internet There are probably a few others I'm missing....

greenyoda 13y ago
"censorship evasion..." Unfortunately, having your own copy of Wikipedia could also be used to enable censorship. For example, a fundamentalist school could have their own version of Wikipedia from which they've purged all articles about evolution, etc. Then they could configure their firewall to block the real Wikipedia.
- gnosygnu 13y ago
  Agreed. However, I think it would be less work for them to block access through firewall policy, than to remove them from XOWA. By and large, for most private individuals, an offline app would allow them to evade censorship. I'd hope that this benefit outweighs the risk of the other's abuse.
  - Someone 13y ago
    A firewall would not hide the fact that censoring takes place. You would have to rewrite content to do that. That might be easier in batch, especially if you are going to do NLP to make cut up sentences grammatical.
    - gnosygnu 13y ago
      Ahh.... That's pretty devious. I was thinking of blocking the entire article, not rewriting content. Still not worth the work IMHO, but who knows what censorship servants would do.

thejosh 13y ago

Zombie invasion fanatics, for when the zombies invade you still have an archive of knowledge.

alcari 13y ago
This is only part of why my local file server has a recent wikipedia dump.
- defective 13y ago
  Accidental time travel?
  - alcari 13y ago
    Accidental time travel of my entire house, yes. I really should copy it over to my laptop, as that's a fair bit more likely to be useful if I end up in the past without a source of electricity.

ivanca 13y ago

Schools without internet access; unfortunately those are still millions.

mdda 13y ago

Machine Learning

ddeck 13y ago

Perhaps not the main market, but prisons. Since March 2013, inmates of the Bellevue prison in Gorgier, Switzerland can request access to an uncensored offline copy of the French Wikipedia, based on the Kiwix software. Internet access is severely restricted for the prisoners, most of whom serve long-term sentences [1] [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_June_2013#Offline_Wikipedia_for_prisoners http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Highlights,_June_20...

evolve2k 13y ago

Tech Camps like railscamps.org which often don't have internet access.

evolve2k 13y ago

People living in very remote areas, with no phone/net access like some outback parts of Australia.