[Foundation-l] Latest board resolutions

Fri Jul 28 12:06:51 UTC 2006

I'm just not comfortable with leasing period.

I find Wikipedia to be too important to leave in anyone's hands other than
the immediate foundation.  A company that leases servers may easily give in
to legal challenges or other backhanded threats. We'd have to have legal
advice about how this would effect the lawsuit situation and consider what
we would be giving up.

On 7/28/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
> Anthony wrote:
>
> >On 7/27/06, Brad Patrick <bradp.wmf at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>You have to be kidding.  Are you seriously suggesting the Foundation
> stop
> >>buying servers?
> >>
> >>
> >I seriously think they should look into leasing them instead.
> >
> I don't know if that's necessarily the solution.  In the absence of
> proper and timely financial statements it is difficult to make an
> evaluation from that perspective.  We keep hearing about buying more
> servers, but precious little is done to project needs on the basis of
> the life expectancy of the hardware.
>
> There are also frequent concerns expressed about legal suits that WMF
> could be faced with.  Even though I feel that at least some of those
> concerns are farfetched, good risk management would suggest that ways of
> protecting the assets be devised.  Developing an arm's length
> relationship between the ownership of the assets and any potential
> liability would serve us well.
>
> Leasing could be a part of this through a sale and leaseback arrangement
> with a separately incorporated for profit company.
>
> The feigned, "You have to be kidding," approach reflects a failure to
> properly consider these issues.
>
> Ec
>
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