[Foundation-l] Relocation announcement

[Thomas Dalton]

> The point is, the non-USD donations are already being spent in the US at
> very favorable exchange rates.  Go to the UK and that utterly
> evaporates, and you suddenly need a much larger income stream to achieve
> the same level of spending power.

That's a good point. Nevertheless, it's still a short term
consideration - purchasing power and exchange rates will converge over
time (and then diverge again, of course, but there's no way to know
which direction they'll go in next time).

> And I forgot to mention the single largest expenditure WMF has (or maybe
> second behind server costs): salaries.  The Foundation would have to pay
> significantly more money in the UK

It's second largest, but is still a fairly small proportion. Not to
mention that not all the employees work in the office, a move to the
UK wouldn't involve all the staff moving to the UK (or being replaced
by people in the UK).

> > I haven't looked at the budgets and
> > donation distributions to see how well it would work, but it shouldn't
> > be too big a problem. Remember, WMF is non-profit - one of the biggest
> > problems for profit making businesses is that they have to report
> > profits in one currency, so even if the actual money isn't being
> > converted, they still have to convert it on paper - the WMF doesn't
> > have to worry about that.
>
> Non sequitur?  Assuming it's even true?
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