[Foundation-l] Expert board members - a suggestion

[Brian]

On Mon, Sep 14, 2009 at 10:55 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <
cimonavaro at gmail.com> wrote:

> Tim Landscheidt wrote:
> > Given the fact that no candidate for the board seems to have
> > campaigned prominently for this issue in this year's elec-
> > tion and it does not even seem to have been mentioned in the
> > two before, I do not see why the board should have decided
> > otherwise.
> >
> >   As the re-prioritization seems to have primarily been
> > triggered by River's rant to this very list, do you find his
> > behaviour or the subsequent board decision disrepectful of
> > the community?
> >
> >
> This is not actually that large a surprise as it seems.
>
> A candidate choosing dumps as his main plank of
> attack in running for the board would most likely
> be perceived as somebody working as a Trojan
> Horse for a serious attempt to fork.
>
> The one thing good dumps preserve is the possibility
> of rejuvenating our projects should WMF ever fail -
> heaven forfend! But they also not-inconsequently are
> vital to an attempt at forking, even while the WMF
> were alive and well.
>
> So as a former candidate, let me just state that for
> the best of reasons - sustainability - dumps are
> indeed a priority for all that take sustainability
> seriously. This is not a matter of opinion, but just
> a bald fact.
>
>
> Yours,
>
> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen


The dumps are not needed for a fork. Sure, the dumps would be convenient to
someone who wanted to fork, but that's a long shot once per decade serious
discussion and the fork could be achieved without the dump. Dumps are
primarily useful to researchers, to mirrors, to people interested in
archiving a copy of all knowledge on their computer, and only as an
ancillary affordance should they be thought of as being there for forkers.