[Foundation-l] Relocation announcement

[Anthony]

On 9/22/07, Ben McIlwain <cydeweys at gmail.com> wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Thomas Dalton wrote:
> > On 22/09/2007, Andrew Gray <shimgray at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Yeah. Financially speaking, moving outside the US would be a big hit
> >> (now and in the near future) simply due to exchange rates, if nothing
> >> else.
> >
> > I don't see why exchange rates would make much difference. The WMF
> > recieves donations in all kinds of currencies - just spend the pounds
> > in the UK and the dollars in the US. Exchange rates only matter if you
> > are exchanging currency.
>
> That's not quite how it works.  The donations that are coming in aren't
> going to be changing, so WMF will still be getting most donations in
> USD.  Except, because of the poor exchange rate, it is much more
> expensive to do just about everything in the UK, including renting
> flats, renting office space, buying food, buying bandwidth, etc.  The
> donations wouldn't go nearly as far.

Bottom line is that the cost of living in London, in US dollars, is
expensive.  Of course, the cost of living in San Francisco, in US
dollars, is also expensive.  It's not really an exchange rate thing so
much as a cost of living thing.  A weaker dollar will lead to higher
rent in San Francisco too, although maybe it'll take a few months to
kick in.  Anyone have the cost per square foot for office space in San
Francisco vs. London?

Wikia is in the San Francisco area.  Any chance they'd be willing to
donate some office space to Wikipedia?