From: wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Lisa Thurston
Why shouldn't the companies making money from the Wikipedia data at the microscale should be the primary funders of Wikipedia?
Much as I appreciate and admire your principles, what you are proposing makes little sense if you go to the other side of the boardroom table. You might as well ask "Why don't individuals benefiting from Wikipedia contribute?", because a company is just a group of individuals, namely the shareholders. You are surely not suggesting that we have a log on screen so that anybody who might get a benefit from WP enter their credit card details before being granted access.
And even if we accept the premise that Bill Gates the individual be allowed free access but Microsoft the corporation should pay megabucks, just how do we enforce it? We cannot. And what commercial enterprise with a responsibility to its shareholders is going to shell out money they don't need to?
If, as you say, some large companies derive a commercial benefit from WP and should fund us, then what is to stop them from downloading MediaWiki, hiring some professionals, and building their own encyclopaedia, perhaps as a joint effort with Google along with toolbars and popups and so on? That way, they'd get the same benefits as well as control over the operation and a more focused product.
Peter (Skyring)