[Foundation-l] Relocation announcement

[Andrew Gray]

On 22/09/2007, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > In making this decision, we assessed five major cities: Boston, London,
> >
> > If that assessment took more that say 20 seconds we have a problem.
>
> Could you elaborate? Are you saying that it should be, in some way,
> obvious that London is a bad choice? In what way is that?

As discussed interminably on some other list this very week, British
defamation law is voracious and enthusiastic. Having WMF operating in
a British jurisdiction, or keeping assets there, is pretty much an
invitation for someone to sue us in a UK court - a situation where we
might win but we would certainly suffer.

> > > It's home to plenty of like-minded organizations and possible partners,
> > > top-tier universities like Stanford and UC Berkeley, world-class support
> > > services, and major media.
> >
> > You want to go near the major media groups?
>
> Why not? You can work with your competition to mutual benefit, you know.

Indeed, they're not our "competition" any more so than, say, a random
academic publisher is.

(Incidentally, the real key to this announcement strikes me as not
"San Francisco versus New York", but "anywhere but suburban
Florida"...)

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk