On 08/01/07, Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
Nobody can deny the close relationship between
Wikimedia and MediaWiki.
Some might worry about Wikimedia taking control of MediaWiki,
Well, that's pretty much the de facto condition - it's software
written and actively developed almost entirely for one organisation,
that just happens to be open source and useful to lots of other
people.
OTOH, it's only good sense that getting outside users involved in
development will make for a better and more robust application.
Actively recruiting outside developers doing interesting stuff will
mean the weird and wonderful ideas can go in as extensions rather than
being separate forks.
(Remember the chitchat about "distributed MediaWiki"? Seen
http://www.wikileaks.org/ ? I've already written a note to one of the
devs strongly suggesting they participate in the mainstream of
MediaWiki development.)
[Mind you, I was sure this would be the case with Slash, which is of
industrial robustness ... but an exercise in pain to sysadmin. I want
to hurt it. Real bad. In the face.]
So the question becomes: What would or could Wikimedia being the
official (not just de facto) organisational umbrella do to or for
MediaWiki? Assuming things aren't actually broken right now, which it
appears from this thread is the case.
+ Legal backup in case of attacks from the querulous? Lots of
prominent free software has a legal backup these days. Though most of
the legal concern for Wikimedia is our content.
- Too many eggs in one basket
+ Express task of recruiting outside devs
- ... who then have to be herded by current devs
Please add more.
which is
amusing considering the amount of influence MediaWiki developers have over
Wikimedia affairs. They have as much to fear from us as we do from them ;)
The cure for en:wp admin politics is to point out the devs have all
the REAL power ;-D
- d.