Thanks for raising this Pete. I am interested in both the ethics and practicalities of this change, as a long established unpaid volunteer API user.
Sorry to raise the obvious, but while Geshuri is on the board, someone found in court to have acted *illegally* on behalf of Google resulting in damages of nearly half a billion dollars, yet still voted in unanimously by the rest of the trustees as a jolly good chap (and praised by Lila due to his worthiness), the idea of the board discussing fundamental ethical changes that /may benefit Google/ to the potential disadvantage of volunteers or charitable organisations who will then no doubt be excluded from using a "1st class API, reserved for rich global corporations" is abhorrent. Let's wait and see if the community needs to play a game of brinkmanship with a formal vote of no confidence in the WMF board of trustees, before the current Chairman is seen to raise his hands and admit there is a problem, or do anything about the WMF board's blatantly broken or incompetently managed system of governance (it's 9 days now since my open letter, but there has yet to be a polite acknowledgement of receipt from the Chair). If we end up forcing major changes to the board through a form of democratic commercial embarrassment, then this decision need to wait until there are trustees in place that *we* have confidence in again, not just the majority of current trustees. Fae On 16 January 2016 at 09:23, Pete Forsyth <petefors...@gmail.com> wrote: > I'm interested to hear some perspectives on the following line of thinking: > > Lisa presented some alternative strategies for revenue needs for the > Foundation, including the possibility of charging for premium access to the > services and APIs, expanding major donor and foundation fundraising, > providing specific services for a fee, or limiting the Wikimedia > Foundation's growth. The Board emphasized the importance of keeping free > access to the existing APIs and services, keeping operational growth in > line with the organization's effectiveness, providing room for innovation > in the Foundation's activities, and other potential fundraising strategies. > The Board asked Lila to analyze and develop some of these potential > strategies for further discussion at a Board meeting in 2016. > Source: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Minutes/2015-11-07 > -Pete[[User:Peteforsyth]] > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> -- fae...@gmail.com https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Fae _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
