This would be an interesting discussion to have in the next movement strategy process.
I can see the attraction of doing this, but much better to think about it alongside questions like "what are our collective goals", "how much money do we want to have" and the like. Regards, Chris On 15 Apr 2014 20:51, "Erik Moeller" <e...@wikimedia.org> wrote: > Hi folks, > > I'd be interested in hearing broader community opinions about the > extent to which WMF should sponsor non-profits purely to support work > that Wikimedia benefits from, even if it's not directed towards a > specific goal established in a grant agreement. > > This comes up from time to time. One of the few historic precedents > I'm aware of is the $5,000 donation that WMF made to FreeNode in 2006 > [1]. But there are of course many other organizations/communities that > the Wikimedia movement is indebted to. > > On the software side, we have Ubuntu Linux (itself highly indebted to > Debian) / Apache / MariaDB / PHP / Varnish / ElasticSearch / memcached > / Puppet / OpenStack / various libraries and many other dependencies [2], > infrastructure tools like ganglia, observium, icinga, etc. Some of > these projects have nonprofits that accept and seek sponsorship and > support, some don't. > > One could easily expand well beyond the software we depend on > server-side to client-side open source applications used by our > community to create content: stuff like Inkscape, GIMP and LibreOffice > (used for diagrams). And there are other communities we depend on, > like OpenStreetMap. > > So, should we steer clear of this type of sponsorship altogether > because it's a slippery slope, or should we try to come up with > evaluation criteria to consider it on a case-by-case basis (e.g. is > there a trustworthy non-profit that has a track record of > accomplishment and is in actual need of financial support)? > > I could imagine a process with a fixed "giving back" annual budget > and a community nominations/review workflow. It'd be work to create > and I don't want to commit to that yet, but I would be interested to > hear opinions. > > MariaDB specifically invited WMF to become a sponsor, and we're > clearly highly dependent on them. But I don't think it makes sense for > us to just write checks if there's someone who asks for support and > there's a justifiable need. However, if there's broad agreement that > this is something Wikimedia should do more of, then I think it's worth > developing more consistent sponsorship criteria. > > Thanks, > Erik > > > [1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Freenode_Donation > [2] Cf. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Upstream_projects > -- > Erik Möller > VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
