This was/is actually an extremely controversial project. The corporation (basically the Executive Director) pursued the grant and the idea without soliciting input or really disclosing it to the community of editors, and eventually one of the community-elected trustees was removed for questioning the lack of transparency. The community has a long list of software improvements that they'd like to see to the core platform.
A recent employee survey showed only 10% of WMF staff approved of the Executive Director, probably in large part due to things like this.
A recent employee survey showed only 10% of WMF staff approved of the Executive Director, probably in large part due to things like this.
A critical take on the project as it has been handled: http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.org.wikimedia.foundation/82...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2... is a pretty good (but dated) overview from Wikipedia's weekly newspaper, but there's a few others in the Signpost and a few blog posts across the web.