Lars Aronsson wrote:
Anthere wrote:
Ah, and who do you think would appoint a "site owner" ??? Jimbo ?
Yes, of course. He owns the system, the name, and the machines. He is very generous and liberal, but he is the owner. If you fear that he will shut down Wikipedia, you should keep a backup copy of the GFDL contents on your own computer, but it is not self-evident that you can reuse the name "Wikipedia", since that would be regulated by U.S. trademark law. Jimmy might decide to form a non-profit organization under U.S. law or perhaps Swiss law (like the U.N.?), but as far as I know, he hasn't done this yet.
Amazing that this has appeared in the midst of a thread where we decide how to woo back la enciclopedia libre. They will never come back to such a situation. If they fear that Jimmy will betray the project, then you tell them to put the material on their own server. Well, that is just what they have done. We're trying to convince them that Jimmy will *not* betray the project; you're telling them to go to hell.
This is why I think that an appointed ambassador or governor is needed, who knows the language and has the authority (from Jimmy) to tell people what the policy is, that they can join this list if they want to discuss the policy, and if they cannot accept this policy, then they must leave and start their own project. If you eat in a restaurant or stay in a hotel, you must behave as the owner tells you.
And that is why EL has built its own hotel.
If we want EL back, then we must build a hotel that they own just as much as any of the rest of us: a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organisation, The Wikipedia Foundation, which happens to use servers and Net access donated by Bomis, Inc.
-- Toby