[Foundation-l] Opinions/suggestions for "outside" members of the board?

[Anthony DiPierro]

On 6/19/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
>
> To continue the ongoing board development conversation....
>
> The board is considering adding some prominent person from outside the
> core Wikipedia community to the board and seeks brainstorming ideas of
> what type of person could be good, as well as mentions of names who we
> might want to approach.
>
> Larry Lessig - head of Creative Commons
>
Seems to be a great guy.  I've read his book "Free Culture" which I'd
recommend to anyone who wants to know more about his perspective on
what it is the free content movement is fighting for.

That said, I think one need only look to the license of that book
(Creative Commons Attribution/Non-commercial) to see where there's
room for concern as to whether his philosophy fits with Wikimedia.

> Mitch Kapor - head of Mozilla Foundation (Firefox), founder of EFF, and
> extremely passionate about the Wikipedia mission (and he edits
> Wikipedia, and he is absolutely fascinated by and supportive of our
> community model)
>
Don't know much about him.

> Richard Stallman - needs no introduction
>
Could be interesting.  I certainly like the idea behind his
(abandoned) Gnupedia project currently at
http://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/free-encyclopedia.html.  But putting
him on the board, especially in an appointed as opposed to elected
position, could very well cause a culture clash with the community.

> Eben Moglen - main legal mastermind of the FSF
>
It's hard for me to tell what his philosophy is with regard to free
content other than free software.  I'd definitely love to see him on
an advisory board.

> Comments on these names are welcome... as are further ideas of course!
>
How 'bout the guy who came up with the idea to use wiki software to
build an encyclopedia?  Larry Sanger!  (yes Jimbo, that last comment
was "trolling")

Anthony