[Foundation-l] Hiring of Interim Executive Director and Legal Counsel

[Anthony DiPierro]

On 6/12/06, Tim Starling <t.starling at physics.unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
> Jimmy Wales wrote:
> > 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.
>
> Does he have any experience in running an organisation?
>
> My only dealings with him have been conflicts: first exposing the errors in
> his argument on [[m:Talk:Chapters committee]] and second defending Waerth
> from his bullying on this list. I can only hope that the future will be
> brighter.
>
> -- Tim Starling
>
His comment that he "disagree[s] that membership would be the correct
manner of organizing WMF in any circumstance" is worrysome.
Fortunately, it's not his decision.  I hope to hear from the board
members that they are not intererested in creating the WMF as an
organization with no members.

I also don't understand Brad's aversion to advisory committees.  I've
seen them work very effectively in the organizations I've been
involved in, and 9 times out of 10 the board adopts a resolution which
is essentially identical to the recommendation of the committee.

On the other hand, much of what Brad is saying shows that he has a
good understanding of Wikimedia and non-profit organizations.  So long
as the channels of communication are kept open I'm sure his expertise
will prove extremely valuable and productive.

Anthony