[Wikimedia-l] About the concentration of resources in SF (it was: "Communication plans for community engagement"

[Matthew Roth]

On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 11:38 AM, David Cuenca <dacuetu at gmail.com> wrote:

> Erik, if the WMF is supposed to be a global organization there is no need
> to concentrate all (physical) resources in SF, unless the WMF is acting as
> the US chapter, then it could be understood that it has to restrict its
> geographic presence. As I see it, for example there is no impedement to
> have a WMF Asia in any chosen country of that region with an engineering
> department dependent on the WMF.
>
> I would like to hear from the legal team what are the challenges of having
> a distributed presence. It is not a new problem, many international
> organizations and companies have gone through the process, so there should
> be no need to invent new solutions.


I'm not a lawyer, so I won't pretend to speak expertly to the legal
situations, but in my time on the Communications team I've seen several
concrete examples of where it's very valuable to be far from a conflict
physically and situated in the U.S. There's the disputed Kashmir maps in
India issue (Google and other outfits with offices in those countries have
given in to demands<http://www.businessinsider.com/most-controversial-places-on-google-maps-2013-5?op=1>from
local authorities to alter maps in a number of cases). What kind of
pressure would we get for this file if we had offices in India?
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:India_disputed_areas_map.svg

The most recent example was with the DCRI in France. Had we had offices in
France, I'm not sure the outcome would have been the same; I imagine our
leverage would have been compromised.

Of course, there are significant challenges with U.S. laws around
copyright, so it's not a panacea, certainly. But I do think it's a very
complicated issue.



> As you say, there is international
> staff already, the only thing missing would be a space to attract even more
> talent while keeping the costs down. Not everyone wants to work from home.
> Obviuously an external assessment would be necessary to establish what is
> the size necessary for that to happen and if the benefits outweight the
> costs.
>
> As for chapters building engineering capacity I see it as something
> positive, unfortunately only at the reach of the biggest chapters, and with
> a very local (contry-level) organizational focus, which doesn't help in
> creating an international work environement.
>
> Micru
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 12:30 PM, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> > On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 6:44 AM, David Cuenca <dacuetu at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > I don't agree with Romaine's view that it is a cultural problem, but it
> > is
> > > true that the WMF management seems to prefer to have all development
> > > concentrated in SF.
> >
> > Hardly. About half of WMF's engineering staff is distributed (both
> > inside and outside the US), and we've encouraged and supported
> > software engineering efforts by chapters. I'd actually love to see
> > much more of that happen, and see other chapters build engineering
> > capacity over time. It's legally challenging for WMF to have office
> > presence in multiple jurisdictions, but having independent orgs like
> > Wikimedia chapters build out development teams doesn't suffer from
> > that challenge.
> >
> > We're an open source project; being able to decentralize effort is our
> > strength. The caveat I would add is that you actually need to ensure
> > that complex projects are resourced sufficiently. Wikidata is a
> > success in part because it's a well-resourced, well-managed team, and
> > the partnership in areas where WMF does need to help was carefully
> > negotiated.
> >
> > So, which other chapters are up for building out serious software
> > engineering capacity?
> >
> > Erik
> > --
> > Erik Möller
> > VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation
> >
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>
>
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-- 

Matthew Roth
Global Communications Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
+1.415.839.6885 ext 6635
www.wikimediafoundation.org
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