And I'll add that there's another axis: gwicke (and others?) have been
arguing for a broader "collection of services" architecture for mw. This
would decouple some of the installability issues. Even if PDF rendering
(say) was a huge monster, Jimmy MediaWiki might still be able to simply
install the core of the system. Slow progress making PDF rendering "more
friendly" wouldn't need to hamper all the Jane MediaWikis who don't need
that feature.
These issues cross-couple. Making a really super-easy "giant VM blob" that
contained an entire complicated MediaWiki setup with all bells and whistles
might as a side-effect make it less pressing to decouple the services and
simplify the installation -- so long as the giant blob worked, no one needs
to know what darkness lay beneath the hood. (Is that a good or a bad
thing?) Conversely, making 'apt-get install mediawiki mediawiki-pdf' Just
Work would make it less relevant whether 'mediawiki-pdf' was a separate
service or a tightly-coupled mediawiki extension.
In practice, what is needed most are people to actually work on making the
process friendly, one way or another. (I've done my part by aggressively
patching extension READMEs as I come across them to keep them up to date
and accurate.)
--scott
(
http://cscott.net)