[Foundation-l] Jimmy Wales in the news

[Brian]

 On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 10:58 AM, <daniwo59 at aol.com> wrote:

> 2. Jimmy made one donation, and one donation only, to the Foundation and
> that was in or around June 2003, when the Foundation was formed.It was
> approximately $2,500, deposited to open the first bank account. The exact
> amount  is
> easy to find, since it is the first recorded donation in the books.
>
> Since Sue is a professional, I am sure that she knows all of this. This is
> simply to clarify your points regarding some mistaken assumptions.
>
> Danny
>

Here's a list of the things that Jimmy donated that day. I bolded what I
consider to be the most valuable part of his donation - all work that any
Bomis employee had ever done on the projects.

https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/htdig/wikipedia-l/2003-June/010743.html

*Jimmy Wales* jwales at bomis.com
<wikipedia-l%40lists.wikimedia.org?Subject=%5BWikipedia-l%5D%20Announcing%20Wikimedia%20Foundation&In-Reply-To=>
*Fri Jun 20 16:18:00 UTC 2003*

> I'm pleased to announce the existence of the Wikimedia Foundation,
> Inc., a nonprofit corporation organized under the laws of Florida,
> United States.  I am transferring to this new corporation the assets
> that follow:
>
> 1. All Nupedia.com/net/org/etc. domain names
> 2. All Wikipedia.com/net/org/etc. domain names
>
> 3. All copyrights in software or articles that were previously owned by
> Bomis, Inc. and already placed under a copyleft license.  (*This
> includes work-for-hire by Jason, Tim, Larry, Toan, Liz, and myself, as
> well as any other Bomis employees who may have worked on these
> projects as a part of their job*, but doesn't include any work by those
> parties conducted on their own time or while not an employee of
> Bomis.)
>
> (All that stuff was already under GNU GPL or GNU FDL, so the
> contribution of copyrights is basically a formality.  Even so, we want
> to set a good example.)
>
> 4. Additionally, I am contributing all of my personal copyrights to work
> already released under GNU GPL or GNU FDL in Wikipedia and Nupedia to
> the foundation.
>
> -------
>
> For the time being, the two machines on which Wikipedia runs will be
> continue to be owned by Bomis, but my intention is to donate those if
> the tax implications make sense.  I have to consult with an accountant
> on that, first.
>
> I do NOT encourage you to make donations to the Wikimedia Foundation
> just yet!  I am still working on tax exempt status with the IRS, and I
> have not yet set up a bank account for the foundation anyway.  Those
> things will take a couple more weeks.
>
> On my TODO list here are:
>
> 1.  Complete the IRS process for tax-exempt status
> 2.  Create forms for the transferance of copyrights to the foundation,
> if anyone wants to do that.  See:
> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.html
> for reasons why this might a Good Thing.
> 3.  Setup a bank account for the foundation
> 4.  Setup a merchant account for the foundation to make credit-card
> donations an easy option
>
> I'll update everyone in a couple of weeks with the status.
>
> --Jimbo
>