On 12/28/06, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
If the Gates Foundation is willing to provide the Wikimedia Foundation with a substantial amount of money to help us achieve our aims, the only reason why we should not accept this is when there are conditions attached that are contrary to our principles.
[snip]
In IRC last night, Jeroenvrp asserted rather loudly that even if we were offered a trillion dollars we should not accept a *single* advertisement on our website.
This was after I'd made an example involving freeing every book ever published. A trillion dollars would probably be enough to do it, and probably with enough left over to translate them all and distribute access to them to most of the world.
So, tell me... Should I feel guilty for judging anyone who makes a claim like his to be selfish, short-sighted, irrational, and generally unworthy of our serious consideration?
Of course we're not talking about getting a 'trillion' dollars from everyone, but we're not talking about an advertisement in the normal sense. Our action here is to be liberal with our gratitude in our thanks, not only because doing so is nice.. but because by doing so we hope to demonstrate to large and wealthy donors that we are a worthy recipient of substantial donations from large and wealthy donors.. and through that establish a long term pattern of substantial matching support from the groups in the world most able to provide it.
Often the media can't even figure out that Wikipedia is a charity and we've had instance of meetings with seriously important people who think that Wikipedia is just another Web 2.0 hopeful that plans to make a fortune without a business plan... Our fundraiser will remind the world that we are a charity, and being loud and clear about the support we are getting from groups like Virgin Unite tells all of the large companies and foundations that is proper and, hopefully someday, expected for them to donate to us.