Imran Ghory wrote:
That way the machines running wikipedia wouldn't be under the control of one organization/company, this also has the advantage that the cost of hardware/bandwidth/etc would be distributed.
I'm not opposed to this, but from a technical point of view, it is complex to do it in a robust way. I.E., with a central URL, we don't get links to things that disappear, etc.
Also, the cost of bandwidth/hardware/etc is not that high.
As for the donations, it might be possible to bring wikipedia under the wings of an already non-profit organization which everyone trusts (maybe FSF, FSF Europe, Ibiblio, or one of the open source education groups) that way we could get tax-free donations without the problem of setting up our own non-profit.
This is possible, but we would be giving control away from our community, to another organization which might have different goals, and might not respect our ways.
--Jimbo