Hello folks,
I am currently running a rather old version of Mediawiki 1.6.10 and have not upgraded because, well..... no one ever really complained. However, recently, there has been some noise about the limitations of SEARCH and the EASE of EDIT-ABILITY (not having to memorize all those darned wiki editing codes)
I have scoured the internet looking for a features listing of 1.6 compared to 1.16.... I cannot find a roadmap document or release note that don't go into nauseating detail.
Essentially, what are by BIG WINS by upgrading from 1.6 to *1.16* ? Will SEARCH be improved? Will EDIT-ABILITY be improved... anything else that will convince me that the effort will be worthwhile ?
Any commentary you can offer would be appreciated.
On 06/01/11 12:08, Eldon Neustaeter wrote:
Hello folks,
I am currently running a rather old version of Mediawiki 1.6.10 and have not upgraded because, well..... no one ever really complained. However, recently, there has been some noise about the limitations of SEARCH and the EASE of EDIT-ABILITY (not having to memorize all those darned wiki editing codes)
I have scoured the internet looking for a features listing of 1.6 compared to 1.16.... I cannot find a roadmap document or release note that don't go into nauseating detail.
You may find this useful:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki#Version_History
Will SEARCH be improved? Will EDIT-ABILITY be improved...
Not really.
There was a problem with search in 1.6 involving an inability to search for small or common words. I'm not sure if that is your problem, but it is fixable without upgrading, by changing the MySQL configuration. Upgrading MediaWiki would also fix it.
anything else that will convince me that the effort will be worthwhile ?
I would think that patching the XSS vulnerabilities would be fairly important. File deletion in 1.6 was irreversible, so an XSS attack could lead to all your images being permanently deleted. I'm sure you keep regular backups, but still, I would think that it would be a bit of a nuisance.
Upgrading to 1.16 will allow you to use PHP 5.3, which is now the only supported branch of PHP. Running an old version of PHP means that you are exposed to the dangling pointer issues which are steadily discovered in it. Memory corruption bugs in PHP are not fully researched for potential security implications. At least, not in public.
Also there are a couple of hundred extensions which have been written since you last upgraded, almost none of them support 1.6.10. Maybe you can find something compelling in there. Maybe even something to do with EDIT-ABILITY or SEARCH.
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Category:Extensions
-- Tim Starling
I wrote:
Upgrading to 1.16 will allow you to use PHP 5.3, which is now the only supported branch of PHP.
That is to say, it's the only branch which is supported by the PHP group. They recently announced that they will stop maintaining the 5.2 branch. MediaWiki will still run on 5.2 for a while.
-- Tim Starling
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