[Foundation-l] Fundraising & Networking updates

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Jan 8, 2008 7:24 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > But in many cases, corporations can't just give money to something
> > because they believe in it.  They may need something more.  I can easily
> > envision Dell (random example, just choose any random hardware vendor)
> > wanting to brag that Wikipedia runs on Dell Hardware, and to run
> > commercials with me smiling next to some Dell servers saying how great
> > they are.  And that would be just fine, I think.

It is my direct experience that Wikimedia has previously turned down
offers of equipment made with exactly this sort of stipulation.

I think such an arrangement could be reasonable so long as it was
handled in an appropriate way. But I am a bit confused by this
apparent change in direction.

In my eyes appropriate would include being transparent and honest
about the arrangement, and not promoting the sponsor in incorrect
places or in excess of the level that Wikimedia promotes other
essential parts of the infrastructure. Obviously there is room for
reasonable people to disagree on the details here.

> You really think the WMF endorsing a company's product in exchange for
> a large donation is "just fine"? What happened to neutrality?

I think you misunderstand.  What Jimmy was talking about was: Company
X donates their product, something that Wikimedia needs, and Wikimedia
tells people the truth.. that it uses X's product and X can tell
prospective customers that the Nth largest website uses their product.

He was not discussing X gives WMF $1 million, and WMF says X's
products are great.

Still, the devil is in the details, ... some people would be alright
with making every page mention it,  ... other people might observe
that doing so would really be putting up an advert (with slightly
implausible plausible denyability).

It's also arguable that unless you are very upfront with the fact that
the equipment from X was donated that people may get the false
impression that X was selected because it was the best value, when it
might have only been attractive because it was available without an
upfront capital cost.