Jeff V. Merkey wrote:
2. Has Dependencies on PHP 5.0.0 (5.1.4). php 5 is a
bug infested
experimental release which does not have consistent installs on the
commerical
Linux distributions, including Red Hat ES 4, Suse 10, etc, crashes on
apache, is poorly documented, and has a slew of defects, is difficult to
install and configure.
PHP 4 is infested with bugs too, the difference is that the PHP devs refuse
to backport fixes for them. PHP 5 has had 18 releases now, over the course
of 3 years, and is widely available on commercial web hosts.
It's not the first time we've required PHP updates, we dropped support for
PHP 4.1.x and then later 4.2.x.
What should happen in the future:
1. MediaWiki needs to post releases against commercial Linux distros
and not a "roll your own" with a patchwork of patches and fixes. As it
stands,
MediaWiki 1.7.1 is not installable or usable on RedHat ES4 or FC5
without major patching and recompiling -- steps outside the skills of
most folks
who need to use Wikipedia content.
2. Wikimedia needs to enforce MediaWiki releases to allow seamless
importing and use of XML dumps and content.
I wasn't aware that the linux distros weren't including PHP 5 yet. Here's
Wikimedia's install script in case it helps:
http://noc.wikimedia.org/~tstarling/install-php
It should work on FC 3, 4 and maybe 5.
My 2 cents.
I spend currently about 40% of my time getting around MediaWiki problems
with Wikipedia XML dumps, and 60% of my time actually working on Native
language translations. The Uto-Aztecan language is being added at
present as the Ute and Unita tribes have joined the WikiGadugi project.
It would be nice if the MediaWiki folks would give more thought to
ensuring their software works properly before posting releases, and the
Wikimedia Foundation needs to enforce compatibilty between its published
XML dumps and make certain they work properly with released MediaWiki
versions. As it stands, the current setup almost appears
anti-competitive by design to prevent folks from creating Wiki's of
Wikipedia content (though I do not believe this is intentional on the
part of Wikimedia).
The "we are community driven" excuse only works if the community is also
the customer and end consumer of Wikipedia content, which it is not.
Anything we can do to make all of our jobs easier and more pleasant is
appreciated.
MediaWiki is primarily written for Wikimedia, development has always been
driven by Wikimedia's needs. It's no coincidence that we dropped PHP 4
support not long after we upgraded the Wikimedia cluster to PHP 5. MediaWiki
is not "community driven" if you take the community to be the external
sysadmin community. It is driven by the community of Wikimedia users.
I don't know what your problem with the XML dumps is, but I'm sure if there
is a problem with the format then it can be fixed. If you tell us what it
is, of course.
Nod to Brion and Domas, I seem to be repeating some of the points they have
made.
-- Tim Starling