If you’ve been worried about the survival of everyone’s favorite online encyclopedia, fear not – the Wikimedia Foundation recently received a $500,000 donation.
Vinod Khosla
(Photo Credit: Wikipedia)
Yes, Vinod and Neeru Khosla gave $500K, and this should keep the entry on Klingon available for a while yet. Sue Gardner, the Wikimedia Foundation’s executive director, explained, “Vinod and Neeru share the Wikimedia Foundation’s vision: a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Today, they have moved us closer to making that vision a reality.”
They also may have moved Wikipedia and Jimmy Wales a little further from suspicion. There’s been talk of traded favors recently, and Wales’s personal life and spending habits have been scrutinized. A $500,000 gift is quite a vote of confidence.
Assuming, anyway, that the $500,000 isn’t itself one of those sources of trouble. Owen Thomas asks, “Is this one of the $500,000 donations McNamee recently said he helped broker? And if so, what do he and Khosla expect to get in return? For starters, keep a close eye on Wikipedia’s articles on ethanol, a major business interest of Khosla’s.”
Neeru Khosla is, for the record, the co-founder and chair of CK-12, a non-profit organization that “aims to reduce the cost of textbook materials for the K-12 market both in the US and worldwide.”
