[Foundation-l] Relocation announcement

Sat Sep 22 14:50:47 UTC 2007

On 22/09/2007, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > In making this decision, we assessed five major cities: Boston, London,
> >
> > If that assessment took more that say 20 seconds we have a problem.
>
> Could you elaborate? Are you saying that it should be, in some way,
> obvious that London is a bad choice? In what way is that?

Legally. Libel laws are tougher. Copyright laws are tougher (if
looking like they may be more stable) the foundation would probably
either have to re fight Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. in the
English courts and win or delete a large chunk of commons.

> > One of these days the board is going to make a decision that doesn't
> > increase costs.
>
> There's more to decision making that cutting costs. Any change from
> the status quo is normally going to cost money.

Only in the short term. It is possible to make decisions that cut
costs in the long term.
>
> > > Why San Francisco? It's the centre of high-tech in the United States.
> >
> > Wikipedia isn't really that high-tech any more.
>
> That's a pretty good point, I'm not really sure why the WMF needs to
> be near high-tech industry.
>
> > > It's home to plenty of like-minded organizations and possible partners,
> > > top-tier universities like Stanford and UC Berkeley, world-class support
> > > services, and major media.
> >
> > You want to go near the major media groups?
>
> Why not? You can work with your competition to mutual benefit, you know.

Not legally. Fortunately most media groups are not really competition
(Getty and Corbis perhaps but I doubt they view us as a significant
problem yet incidentally both of those are based in Seattle,
Washington). No most media groups are at most looking at wikipedia for
the source of a story. I'm not sure that is a reason to be near them.

FWIW Jupitermedia is based in Darien, Connecticut.

>
> > So we now have to worry about 2 sets of state law? While I understand
> > Californian law in the relevant areas is fairly liberal anyone know
> > any details?
> > Either way BLP is going to need updating. Again.
>
> WMF is an international organisation. Yes, they are registered in the
> US, but they do business around the world, which means they have to
> consider all kinds of legal systems.

Not to the same extent. For example I suspect that elements of
wikipedia in it's current form is illegal in Zimbabwe. I could make a
fairly good case that it is illegal in Australia.

>BLP is not based on Florida law.

Yes it is. See the second sentence

> Libel law doesn't vary that much from place to place, BLP is intended
> to be safe from any major definition (same as our fair use policy),

EDP. Our copyright policy as a whole is of questionable legality under
french law.

> and the rest of BLP is based on ethics, which aren't set down in
> statutes of any state.

I would beg to differ.

-- 
geni