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MediaWiki is now using a "continuous integration" development model with quarterly snapshot releases. The latest development code is always kept "ready to run", and in fact runs our own sites on Wikipedia.

Release branches will continue to receive security updates for about a year from first release, but nonessential bugfixes and feature development happen will be made on the development trunk and appear in the next quarterly release.

Those wishing to use the latest code instead of a branch release can obtain it from source control: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Download_from_SVN

=== What's new in 1.6 ===

User interface: * The account creation form has been separated from the user login form. * Page protection/unprotection uses a new, expanded form

Templates: * Categories and "what links here" now update as expected when adding or removing links in a template. * Template parameters can now have default values, as {{{name|default value}}}

Uploads: * Optional support for rasterizing SVG images to PNG for inline dislay

Feeds: * Feed generation upgraded to Atom 1.0 * Diffs in RSS and Atom feeds are now colored for improved readability.

Database: * MySQL 3.23.x support dropped; 4.0 or later required * Experimental support for Unicode mode of MySQL 4.1/5.0 (moderately tested) * Experimental Oracle support (not well tested!)

Anti-spam extension support: * Spam blacklist extension now has support for automated cleanup: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/SpamBlacklist_extension * Support for a captcha extension to restrict automated spam edits: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ConfirmEdit_extension

Numerous bug fixes and other behind-the-scenes changes have been made; see the file HISTORY for a complete change list.

Full release notes: http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/tags/REL1_6_0/phase3/RELEASE-NOTES http://svn.wikimedia.org/viewvc/mediawiki/tags/REL1_6_0/phase3/HISTORY

Download: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/wikipedia/mediawiki-1.6.0.tar.gz

MD5 checksum: mediawiki-1.6.0.tar.gz e406c949a5919768b4a5011166e44ea4

Before asking for help, try the FAQ: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_FAQ

Low-traffic release announcements mailing list: (Please subscribe to receive announcements of security updates.) http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-announce

Wiki admin help mailing list: http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l

Bug report system: http://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/

Play "stump the developers" live on IRC: #mediawiki on irc.freenode.net

- -- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)