On 10/05/10 15:25, Elias Gabriel Amaral da Silva
wrote:
BTW, I also have a broader question. Who
entrusted power to the Board
of Trustees?
Jimmy Wales determined the structure of the Wikimedia Foundation when
he created it. He and Bomis donated the relevant assets, such as the
domain names, to the Foundation at the time it was formed.
We should remember, when we criticise his use of whatever remnant of
power that he has left, that he could have easily structured Wikimedia
as a for-profit entity, with him retaining majority control. We have
Jimmy to thank for Wikimedia's non-profit status, its open-source
software stack and its free content license.
If Wikipedia wouldn't have been so free today it would stand where
Citizendium stands and another free encyclopedia project would have
evolved in place. Wikipedia wasn't the only community-driven
encyclopedia project. But it made the race and beat all its competitors
cause no other project was as free and easily accessible as Wikipedia.
Marcus Buck
User:Slomox