Following a long discussion, both publicly and privately, the board of the foundation voted recently to hire an interim Executive Director and legal counsel. We offered the position to Brad Patrick, and he accepted. We have discussed at length the parameters of the position, including job responsibilities, and so on. (This has been posted and discussed publicly as well.) Who is Brad? Brad has been our pro-bono legal counsel for the past several months, has become very active in foundation matters and in the projects. He is of course a huge fan of free software, Larry Lessig, and Wikipedia, and lives and breathes this stuff. Rather than doing "merely" legal work (nothing mere about it, of course) for us, he has gotten involved in helping the board think about policy, in helping Danny deal with various "customer support" issues, etc. The need for fulltime legal counsel should be obvious to everyone involved with the projects. We are increasingly approached with interesting opportunities to partner with various organizations in ways that are consistent with our community values and missions, and we really need fulltime legal support to make sure these deals are done in a way which is safe for the foundation. Additionally, of course there is an ever increasing burden as we grow more popular of legal complaints that we continue to try to deal with in a timely and effective manner. The need for help in the executive arena is also obvious to most of you... particularly any of you who have had to deal with the critical lack of human bandwidth at the foundation level to get things done in a timely fashion. Brad was selected first and foremost because he is of the community, actively involved for several months, and deeply committed to our mission. Additionally, when I consulted recently with our volunteer attorneys, including Alex Roshuk, Jean-Baptise Soufron and Michael Snow, as well as consulting with Eben Moglen of the FSF and Larry Lessig of Creative Commons, a common refrain was that we need someone who is familiar with the particulars of Florida law, as well as someone who can effectively co-ordinate and manage pro-bono legal resources. This is important to emphasize: we are not hiring an in-house counsel *instead of* seeking pro-bono help, but hiring in-house counsel *so that* we can effectively seek and manage pro-bono help. As an example: when I asked Eben Moglen for help, he said that he can (starting this fall, most likely) arrange for us the equivalent of a half-time lawyer, except he was quite adamant that he could do so only if we could manage the pro-bono hours effectively, and he was very strongly in support of us having someone fulltime. Additionally, Brad will be taking on a number of job responsibilities that fall outside of the strictly legal scope, *on an interim basis*. We, the board, have been overwhelmed for many months, and we need help and assistance with business deals, legal matters, finance, audit, planing, etc., etc., the list goes on and on. We intend to hire a fulltime Executive Director following a very careful process of consulting with the community, building support globally, defining what the foundation needs, and a comprehensive search for a good candidate, both *within the existing community* and *outside the community*. It is my intention that we be very very careful in this process to preserve our fundamentally community-driven model, while at the same time adding professionalism to the organization in order to empower and defend the community model. :) Among Brad's duties will be to assist in co-ordinating and managing that search process, in conjunction with the board and community leaders of all kinds. We expect there to be significant press attention to this hiring, and significant support and attention from the community. If you have been following the discussion on foundation-l, you will know that there are serious excitements and of course concerns in the community about what this direction means for the future of the foundation and for the community. I intend to keep repeating my same message strongly and simply: it is my intention to build upon and extend our radical methods of openness and community involvement, while at the same time playing close attention to the needs of the organization which makes all of that possible. Whatever side any of you personally may come down on, relating to some of the details of all that, I hope that you will join me in saying that our similarities and hopes and dreams for the future are more important than any minor differences, and that we can work our way forward as we always have... slowly and carefully, with genuine respect for everyone who is taking part in the discussions in a constructive way... It is important to emphasize that the ED position is primarily about the organization, not about the community. That is to say, now is not the time to start leaving "please unblock me" messages on Brad's talk page. ;-) Brad is starting work immediately. --Jimbo -- ####################################################################### # Office: 1-727-231-0101 | Free Culture and Free Knowledge # # http://www.wikipedia.org | Building a free world # #######################################################################