[Foundation-l] Omidyar Network Commits $2 Million Grant to Wikimedia Foundation

[Anthony]

On Fri, Aug 28, 2009 at 1:45 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>wrote:

> 2009/8/28 Liam Wyatt <liamwyatt at gmail.com>:
> > In the interest of creating *informed* discussion, please note the
> > publication of Episode 82 of Wikipedia Weekly - an interview with Matt
> > Halprin.
> >
> > In this, at timecode 9:15 he is specifically asked about the issue of
> > the donation+board membership.
> >
> > http://wikipediaweekly.org/2009/08/28/episode-82-matt-halprin-interview/
>
> I thank Wikipedia Weekly for asking the question, but he didn't really
> answer it. He spent most of his answer talking about his
> qualifications (which nobody disputes) and then just added on the end
> that there isn't a tie between the money and the seat. It is going to
> take more than that to convince me. They were announced on the same
> day, to claim they are unrelated is pretty hard to believe.
>

It seems to me that if one is to assume good faith, the answer is that the
money and the commitment by Halprin to be on the board *were* related, in
that they were both things provided for the Wikimedia Foundation by related
parties.  It all depends on how you look at it, really.  You can look at it
as the WMF gave Halprin a seat, or you can look at it as Halprin agreed to
take a seat.