History of Wikipedia accused of being illegal. Historical summaries Size and statistics Discussion and debate archives Other History of Wikipedia Wikipedia began with its launch on 15 January 2001, two days after the domain was registered by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger. Its technological and conceptual underpinnings predate this; the earliest known proposal for an online encyclopedia was made by Rick Gates in 1993, but the concept of a free-as-in-freedom online encyclopedia (as distinct from mere open source) was proposed by Richard Stallman in December 2000. Crucially, Stallman's concept specifically included the idea that no central organization should control editing. This characteristic was
History of Wikipedia Wikipedia, describing the latter as "broken beyond repair." By 2005 Wales began to dispute Sanger's role in the project, three years after Sanger left. In 2005, Wales described himself simply as the founder of Wikipedia; however, according to Brian Bergstein of the Associated Press, "Sanger has long been cited as a co-founder." There is evidence that Sanger was called co-founder, along with Wales, as early as 2001, and he is referred to as such in early Wikipedia press releases and Wikipedia articles and in a September 2001 "New York Times" article for which both were interviewed. In 2006, Wales said,