[Foundation-l] Fundraising & Networking updates

Wed Jan 9 01:00:58 UTC 2008

> > You really think the WMF endorsing a company's product in exchange for
> > a large donation is "just fine"? What happened to neutrality?
>
> I think you misunderstand.  What Jimmy was talking about was: Company
> X donates their product, something that Wikimedia needs, and Wikimedia
> tells people the truth.. that it uses X's product and X can tell
> prospective customers that the Nth largest website uses their product.
>
> He was not discussing X gives WMF $1 million, and WMF says X's
> products are great.

I may be misunderstanding what he meant (I certainly hope I am), but
that *is* what he said. He explicitly mentioned the WMF (via himself)
saying how great the product was. That is, by definition, an
endorsement. I have no problem with the WMF publicly using donated
hardware, but they shouldn't be passing judgement on it (other than by
using it, which is implicitly judging it as fit for purpose,
obviously).