[Wikipedia-l] Re: Setting a new server in France for french wikipedia

[Jimmy Wales]

Walter Vermeir wrote:
> The Wikimedia foundation is "located on Florida soil and subject to 
> Florida and USA law". Supose the only reason why it is Florida for 
> Wikimedia is that Jimmy is from there and so it is the logical choise.

Yes, but also, from a freedom of speech point of view, the US is a
very logical choice.  France, Germany, Canada, Great Britain, all have
laws which I think *might* directly impact our ability to produce an
NPOV encyclopedia in some cases.  Notice that the French are often
concerned, with good reason, that something might violate French
censorship laws.

On the other hand, if for some technical reason it is really necessary
to have a European legal presence in order to do something we want to
do, it should be easy enough to do that and keep things isolated.

One example: in my research yesterday (admittedly limited) it is not
possible to register wikipedia.fr unless we have a French
organization.  I am as yet unsure if there are services (as there are
for many countries) that will hold the name in trust for us.  

I wonder if perhaps ouvation can do that?

(But, I do not know the politics of ouvation, nor whether they are
trustworthy, so I only give them as an example.)

--Jimbo