[Foundation-l] Priorities

[Gregory Maxwell]

On 10/24/07, Jon Harald Søby <jhsoby at gmail.com> wrote:
> Languages die because there is no education available in those languages.

Why would there not naturally be education available in languages that
people were interested in using?  I think you may have the causation
reversed there. :)

> Think about that for a second, and you see that a side-effect of Wikimedia's
> goal of bringing free content to all the people in the world in their own
> language, is actually saving languages.

Yes, the side effect. It's great if that happens as a side-effect in
some cases, but saving languages isn't the mission.

When there is no conflict and we can work side by side with language
preservationists, extreme polyglots, and conlang advocates thats
great. But if we reach a point where language preservation is being
advocated as a core part of the foundation's mission and when some
people are advocating that funding be diverted from the true
educational mission we will need to put a stop to that.