Wikipedia won't "shut within 3-4 months"

Update: the story ends on lunch over IP, where Bruno Giussani has a complete rundown of the situation.

I see that the rumor that wikipedia could “shut within 3-4 months” is all over the blogosphere right now (more on techmeme).

I cannot post the videos of the conference at this point, but I quickly had a look at the recording of the chat I had with Florence Devouard on the LIFT stage. Here is a transcript of the discussion, but in a word, Florence made it very clear that Wikipedia would NOT shut down in the next 3 months.

Me: “When we prepared this speech, Florence told me that Wikipedia has enough cash to pay for its server for the next…”

Florence Devouard: “Three months. Roughly.”

Me: “and if we don’t do something, Wikipedia won’t be here in three or four months. That’s a radical idea, it’s not going to happen but…”.

FD: ”...three months is a bit negative. [...] We have somebody making plans for two years in the future, I think we will survive in the next three months”.

My feeling is that Florence appears to be very confident that the foundation will get over this problem. Wikipedia is in a tensed situation but has a lot of potential solutions before they have to pull the plug. The video will follow.

 original of the article