Ben Francis wrote:
The suggestion of writing a programmable REST/XML-RPC/SOAP API that exposes MediaWiki domain objects is really quite exciting and I plan to apply with this project in mind. [...] It would be great to work with the pywikipediabot, perlmediawikiclient, and java mediawikiclient guys
I've decided a while back to have an API panel at Wikimania's Hacking Days. The core MediaWiki hackers will all be there, and I'm hoping to also bring out one of the core pywikipediabot guys.
FWIW, I'd discourage this being taken on as a SoC project this summer, since it's a complicated problem that needs significant up-front discussion with a variety of people before any code should be written.