Archive:Press releases/Wikia, Inc. is not the commercial counterpart to Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation: Difference between revisions

From Wikimedia Foundation Governance Wiki
mNo edit summary
(No difference)

Revision as of 13:47, 20 April 2007

There have been several news reports stating that Wikia, Inc. was the commercial counterpart of Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation, or that Wikipedia or the Wikimedia Foundation were going to develop search engines.

Neither is true.

Wikia, Inc. is a for-profit corporation that operates wikis (a form of Internet sites) on a variety of topics. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. is a nonprofit corporation that operates wiki with an educational and informational goal, the best known of which is Wikipedia, the Free encyclopedia.

Wikia and Wikimedia are distinct and separate corporations with no links, be them financial or managerial. The only relationship between the two, beyond the similarity in names, is that Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, is also one of the founders of Wikia. However, revue to Wikia does not fund the Wikimedia Foundation in any way. The Wikimedia Foundation is mostly funded by donations from users, and does not run commercial operations. Jimmy Wales is not the representant of Wikimedia Foundation and his announcements do not necessarily represent the views of the Foundation.

To summarize:

  • Wikia is not the commercial counterpart to Wikipedia.
  • Wikipedia is not developing a search engine and does not plan to.