Just to extend my thanks to all Mediawiki collaborators and freelancers.
They're doing a great job
But I also want to repeat that I fully agree with Jan, Daniel and Chris. A
simple upgrade of the Maps extension brought me into a fortnight (and still
counting) of updating problems (and a wiki outage of several days). I
fortunately have some spare time (though better things to do) and a very
small wiki audience, but situations like this one would certainly
disencourage many users. I'm a user of several other packages such as
Joomla, Wordpress and Vtiger that upgrade much more easily. And yes, they
may be less complex than Mediawiki (certainly with respect to the number of
extensions) but still.
On Wed, Dec 16, 2015 at 5:02 AM, <tharpenator(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Just to add to Daniel's statement, and as I said
previously, the reality
of the upgrade process, and the problems most have with it, is summed up in
the statistics. As I recall, I think, over 70% of all wikis monitored are
using an old, outdated version of Mediawiki. Additionally, as I recall, the
user survey found the upgrade process is one of the top concerns of third
party users. And consider a survey is generally only answered by people who
feel vested into the subject. I think almost all third party users would
gladly give a big thanks to everyone involved in the development of the
software, but they also are speaking very loudly (counting the 70% who
don't upgrade) with their words, & actions, that the upgrade process needs
to be easier.
Sent from my iPad
On Dec 15, 2015, at 7:34 PM, Daniel Bishop
<aerosatar(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I usually don't weigh in on these conversations, but I feel like I
should
speak up here too. I must also mention that, while I am not a
developer, I *am* a reasonably technically capable user.
All that being said: Mediawiki is hard to upgrade. That is a fact. It is
the
*only* software I have ever come across where the Official upgrade
instructions are, essentially, "make a backup and do a completely fresh
install, run a script, then re-customise".
And before anyone says that isn't true, these are taken from the
Mediawiki
upgrade page:
"You should put the decompressed tarball in a new and empty folder on
your
server. If you instead extract the new version directly on top of your
old version, rather than in a new directory, you should follow the
instructions described in Back up existing files and the database:
otherwise, if you've made any customizations you may erase them in a way
that leaves you with no reference to re-apply them from. Extracting a
tarball over top of your live copy of MediaWiki can also leave behind files
from the old version of MediaWiki which may interfere with the upgraded
code. It's recommended that you unpack the new files into a new directory,
and then apply customizations to the new directory (restoring
LocalSettings.php, images folder, extensions, and other customizations like
custom skins)."
"If using Git, export the files into a clean location, and then copy the
old
customized files into the new location as described in the previous
section."
Simply dismissing people's completely valid comments about this with
"your case is not normal" (and similar) is not conducive to the continued
life of your product. (Yes, Mediawiki is essentially open-source freeware,
but it is still a product.)
There are a lot of software packages out there that update more
frequently than
Mediawiki does (in terms of official releases), but all of
these have few- or no-click updates. Why does Mediawiki require a
completely fresh install every time? Why can a new installation and update
method not be developed?
Jan, and many others, have made a lot of valid comments on this
discussion. So why
have they all been summarily dismissed with such...
complete lack of consideration?
We are not all developers. We do not all have that level of skill.
We are not all able to devote large amounts of time to keeping the
software
'up-to-date' with the current (rather involved) method.
We are not asking for the more edge-case scenarios to all be covered in
every way
possible (a gap of several years *should* require/be best served
by a fresh install).
We are simply asking for it to be easier to upgrade our Mediawiki
installations so
that we can make use of the features, improvements and
fixes that the developers put time into doing. (Which, incidentally, would
also likely vastly reduce the number of edge-case installations out there.)
The fact that this whole debate was started over a question about PHP
versions
(i.e. software dependencies) is also rather interesting.
Regards,
AerosAtar
P.S. FWIW, my install is 1.26a (559e61e) running on PHP5.6.4-4ubuntu6.3
(fpm-fcgi).
P.P.S. Apologies if my thoughts are not entirely coherent or do not make
complete
sense... I usually stay out of such conversations for a reason. ;)
-----Original Message-----
From: MediaWiki-l [mailto:mediawiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On
Behalf Of
Jan Steinman
Sent: 15 December 2015 21:33
To: mediawiki-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: Re: [MediaWiki-l] MediaWiki-l Digest, Vol 147, Issue 3
From: Tim Starling
<tstarling(a)wikimedia.org>
All good points, and yet:
Your case is not normal. That
is the price you pay for upgrading MediaWiki as often as other people
paint their houses.
That's a useful analogy. One doesn't hire a staff painter to be on-hand,
touching up little nicks here and there as they develop over time unless
painting is but a small part of the operation. For most people, one waits
until it actually needs painting.
I have farm plants and animals to take care of, and a not-for-profit
organization
to run, and I volunteer for numerous other organizations. I
don't have time to baby-sit a computer.
This is not an easy thing to hear nor understand for those who spend all
their
time baby-sitting computers for a living. I know -- that was me in
another life!
So, one *could* say, "Hey, if we made upgrading as easy as paint drying,
more
people would keep up!"
Or one can self-righteously blame the victim for having a life beyond
keeping up
with every little upgrade.
(Postscript: I composed that message a week and a day ago. Then I felt
guilty, and
proceeded to go on an "upgrade binge," bringing my OS up from
10.6.8 to 10.10.5, which would have given me -- among other things -- PHP
5.6. End result: my email and website were down for a week as I struggled
to get my server's environment back, and I never did get a working upgrade
installed. This is coming to you from a restored backup. I feel vindicated.)
Jan Steinman
EcoReality Co-op,
http://www.EcoReality.org
2152 Fulford-Ganges Road
Salt Spring Island, BC V8K 1Z7 CANADA
+1 250.653.2024
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