On 22/09/2007, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Right on it :-)
It is interesting to see that many of the discussions focus on a question of costs or on a legal question.
Because wikipedians are survival minded. From the point of view of the average wikipedian the job of the foundation is to keep the servers running. Thus having the foundation take on extra liabilities (higher rents and wages and the like) is worrying. It's the standard crisis analysis. If the money stops coming in how long can we keep going. Moving somewhere expensive doesn't help.
Will moving out of Florida increase costs ? Without any doubts :-) But in the long run, moving out of Florida has become necessary to allow the Foundation to grow and mature. Sue already mentionned several reasons to move out, such as getting nearer similar-minded organizations, making international travel easier, major media or top universities. I have another argument to push along, which I think would impair our grown very soon in the future. People. People as in staff. We had the chance to find very good people in St Pete (or had the chance some staff members, such as Brion, moved to Florida in the past), however, we must face a fact: we are more likely to find the skills we need for our development in a big multicultural city than in St Pete, in particular for the senior management. St Pete is a very confortable place to live, but not exactly a anthill of experts in fundraising, business development, grant making, open source mouvement etc...
Means nothing if you can't afford them in SF.