Hoi,
When the Wikimedia Foundation wants to make MediaWiki an official project,
it has the potential to make this change happen. With this change, the WMF
however assumes responsibilities that it currently does not have. It
currently does not take responsibility for the way Brion has too much on his
plate to finish the many things he did not finish. It can at this moment
selfishly urge Brion to do whatever because of WMF priorities.
When the WMF takes responsibility for MediaWiki, it should take much more
notice of all the other organisations that use MediaWiki and have developed
their own changes to accommodate needs that the WMF does not feel for its
projects. Doing this will bring the power of all the people who also
developing MW, and it will bring the need for integration and support that
has not really been addressed up to now.
If this move is intended to bring more volunteer developers to MediaWiki I
am afraid that it is just window dressing. It will not make much of a
difference because people come and stay as they like. If you TRULY want more
developers, having someone dedicated to coaching the people who are new to
the MediaWiki code would make much more of a difference. Having someone
coach people who are doing projects and stuff in Universities would really
help.
Sure, MediaWiki is strategic to the Wikimedia Foundation. It is not only
strategic to the WMF. In order to take the role of "owning" the project, it
is important that the WMF considers how this new role gives responsibilities
and if the WMF wants to take up this burden.
Thanks,
GerardM
On 1/6/07, Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
I'd like to reopen the discussion about whether we officially consider
MediaWiki a project of the Wikimedia Foundation. Currently, the
position of the Foundation on this issue appears somewhat ambiguous.
While we run the Subversion repository, the website, the mailing
lists, and pay the two lead developers, MediaWiki is listed, for
example, on:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Our_projects
not as a Wikimedia project, but as a "related project." It is also not
part of our usual list of projects. On the other hand,
mediawiki.org
carries the "A Wikimedia Project" button.
My view is that we should make this the consistent, official view and
consistently promote and list MediaWiki as a Wikimedia Foundation
project wherever other Wikimedia projects are listed. My hope is that,
in doing so, we will make MediaWiki more prominent and attract more
volunteers to work on it, just as on other Wikimedia Foundation
projects. I also believe that this will help in making MediaWiki
strategy a key part of the Foundation's general project strategy.
What are other people's thoughts? The only downside I can see is that
this might be seen as a move to exercise additional control over the
direction of development. But already, all major code changes to the
core have to be approved by Brion, who is a Foundation employee. I
actually think it will be easier to identify our responsibility
towards outside users if we consider MediaWiki to be a key part of the
free culture movement that the Wikimedia Foundation must support.
--
Peace & Love,
Erik
DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of
the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
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