Coordinates: 37°47′13″N 122°23′59″W / 37.78697°N 122.399677°W / 37.78697; -122.399677
The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) is an American non-profit and charitable organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, that operates many wikis. The foundation is mostly known for hosting Wikipedia, the Internet encyclopedia, as well as Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikimedia Commons, Wikispecies, Wikinews, Wikiversity, Wikidata, Wikivoyage, Wikimedia Incubator, and Meta-Wiki. It also owned the now-defunct Nupedia.
The Wikimedia organization was founded in 2003 by Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, as a way to fund Wikipedia and its sister projects through non-profit means.
As of 2015, the foundation employs over 280 people, with annual revenues in excess of US$75 million.Lila Tretikov leads the foundation as its executive director, and Patricio Lorente is chairman of the board.
The Wikimedia Foundation's stated goal is to develop and maintain open content, wiki-based projects and to provide the full contents of those projects to the public free of charge.
The history of wikis is generally dated from 1994, when Ward Cunningham gave the name "WikiWikiWeb" to the knowledge base, which ran on his company's website at c2.com, and the wiki software that powered it. c2.com thus became the first true wiki, or a website with pages and links that can be easily edited via the browser, with a reliable version history for each page. He chose "WikiWikiWeb" as the name based on his memories of the "Wiki Wiki Shuttle" at Honolulu International Airport, and because "Wiki" is the Hawaiian word for "Quick".
Wiki software has some conceptual origins in the version control and hypertext systems used for documentation and software in the 1980s, and some actualized origins in the 1970s "Journal" feature of NLS. Its distant ancestors include Vannevar Bush's proposed "memex" system in 1945, the collaborative hypertext database ZOG in 1972, the NoteCards system from Xerox, the Apple hypertext system HyperCard. As was typical of these earlier systems, Cunningham's motive was technical: to facilitate communication between software developers.
We were going nowhere faster than you
Our engines were racing hot and our skin turning blue
Out of our skulls no sleep for a week
You could say we were major league tweeks
We were so strung out and having a blast
Part of that white trash underworld criminal class
We were running those scams, living life on the lam
Living so crazy, eye always looking out for the man
Lowlife trash, bikers and assorted riff-raff
Could you kick it down is what we used to laugh
We were so strung out and having a blast
Part of that white trash underworld criminal class
We were strung, dumb and problems we thought we had none
Generational meth lab dysfunctional kinda' fun
We were going faster nowhere than anybody else
Sure as hell wasn't good for our health
I know we just had to see how high we could fly
Just hope you made it through to the other side
We would never front you off, but could you front me and pay you back real soon
Stealing mail, cashing checks, sweating it out in the heat of noon
Snitch us out and we'll make you pay for it some day
Thick as thieves is what we used to say...
Going nowhere fast... nowhere fast... nowhere faster than you
Then sure enough you're looking out from inside a cell
Trying to figure a way out of this hell
Easy getting hooked tougher getting out
And if you make it then you got the right to sing and shout
We were so strung out and having a blast
Part of that white trash underworld criminal class
We were strung, dumb and problems we thought we had none
Generational meth lab dysfunctional kinda' fun
We were going faster nowhere than anybody else
Sure as hell wasn't good for our health
I know we just had to see how high we could fly
Just hope you made it through to the other side
We would never front you off, but could you front me and pay you back real soon
Stealing mail, cashing checks, sweating it out in the heat of noon
Snitch us out and we'll make you pay for it some day
Thick as thieves is what we used to say...