Hi all,
If you've been following this you might be interested in the views of Geoff Brigham, the WMF legal counsel, which he's posted on our wiki:
Also, I would certainly urge more people to contribute to the discussion. If there are a lot of people out there thinking to themselves that the Board has got this wrong, but haven't summoned the time or energy to post to that effect, please do post and let us know your views. Equally, if there are people who have been watching this conversation and haven't participated because they feel the right decision's been made and so they have nothing to add, please do speak up.
This time last year we had a very clear message from our membership, from the broader community, and from the Wikimedia Foundation that we needed to greatly improve how we handled conflicts of interest. That resulted in the Hudson Review, which gave us some pretty clear recommendations. We have followed those recommendations in dealing with this situation - taking external advice early, thinking carefully about the likely impact of the potential conflict of interest, and coming to a conclusion which the Board believes defends us not just against the risk of anything bad happening, but any allegation of impropriety. In short we have been to the best of our ability doing good governance.
Now, we also clearly have a duty to our members, and a responsibility to maintain the goodwill of the Wikimedia community as a whole. If there is a widespread view that, even with the steps we've outlined, it's not in the charity's best interests for Alastair to continue, then we will listen to that. However since Alastair posted the details of how he will handle this situation, only 5 people (myself included) have taken part in the resulting discussion. Some have posted at some length and in strident terms, but I don't yet see the picture I would need to see to be persuaded we are taking the wrong course of action here.
So please do take part in the discussion.
Regards,
Chris