Danese Cooper gone, CTO resigns after 16 months Options

[NuclearWarfare]

On 2 June, the Foundation's Chief Technical Officer (CTO), Danese Cooper, announced her resignation from the post after 16 months (WikimediaAnnounce-l mailing list). Cooper, who joined in February 2010 (see previous Signpost coverage), cited the changing requirements of the role:

“Sue [Gardner], Erik [Möller] and I have agreed that there's no longer a fit between the identified near-term needs and goals of the organisation, and my own interests. I've therefore decided to [resign] as CTO, but I remain a friend of the organisation and the mission. ”

The resignation of Cooper, who has largely remained out of the technology spotlight compared to previous CTO Brion Vibber, nonetheless attracted sympathy on the Foundation-l mailing list. "It is a sad day", wrote Gerard Meijssen, whilst Thomas Dalton commented that "the WMF is significantly poorer for losing you". A fuller summary of the impact Cooper's resignation will have on the overall Engineering hierarchy is expected from Erik Möller shortly. Cooper also said that she would stay on until the end of July to help with the transition; the post of CTO took some five months to fill last time it was vacant.

Anyone know anything further about this? The wording of the quote makes it sound like she was instructed to resign by Sue Gardner and Erik Möller, but that could just be me reading into things too much.

[thekohser]

It's probably worth noting that we had a fairly extensive thread on Danese Cooper already.