[Foundation-l] Update of Foundation organization

[GerardM]

Hoi,
An employee brings minimally as his/her commitment to work 40 hours a week.
An employee can be told to do what is deemed necessary by the organisation.
An employee is part of an hierarchy and he/she does not have the option to
say "Sorry, but like you I am a volunteer".

These are all things that are really relevant differences. Strange that I
did not have to think hard nor long to come up with just this initial list.
When I think of it, a professional can be hired to do the things where we do
not have the volunteers to do these tasks.

Thanks,
    GerardM

On 3/5/07, Oldak Quill <oldakquill at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 05/03/07, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 3/5/07, Florence Devouard <anthere at anthere.org> wrote:
> > [snip]
> > > * we wish to involve people from all over the world, not restricting
> > > employees to USA only. Currently, those working "offshore" have to be
> > > their own employers (they are contractants). This is not sustainable
> in
> > > the long run, so we have to explore more international employment
> issues.
> > [snip]
> >
> > First off, I'm terrified to raise this point in public because I know
> > that there are people here who will scream that I'm some kind of
> > nationalist bigot for bringing this up. But I think it's a very
> > serious matter which demands the input and understanding of a wide
> > audience.
> >
> > It is my understanding that if we have true employees in a nation that
> > our organization will have a legal presence in that nation. If we have
> > a legal presence in that nation, we will be subject to the
> > jurisdiction of that nation.
> >
> > It would be ideal that our activities would generally be so far away
> > from the ambiguous grey areas of the law that the differing legal
> > behavior would not be a substantial issue for us. However, this just
> > isn't the case today. We benefit substantially from detailed aspects
> > of US law in the areas of libel, copyright, and privacy.
> >
> > *Does operating the foundation with regular employees in a nation
> > create a jurisdictional issue as I described?
> > *How can we avoid this risk while maintaining the agility to hire
> > useful people from any part of the world?
> > *What are the qualities and risks of various jurisdictions?
> > *How can we deal with the impact of being subject to multiple
> jurisdictions?
> >
> > I fear that in the worst case being directly subject to the laws of
> > many nations we may find our entire method of operation (open access
> > Wikis) to be too risky.
>
> A related question: what would an online employee bring to Wikimedia
> that online volunteers couldn't? If the answer is not much, then
> perhaps resources could be better spent elsewhere. This is not to say
> that I don't look forward to the day when the Foundation has employees
> in several countries with different backgrounds, perspectives and
> skills, but the expense of acheiving this must be justified.
>
> --
> Oldak Quill (oldakquill at gmail.com)
>
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