Hoi, When the Wikimedia Foundation wants to make MediaWiki an official project, it has the potential to make this change happen. With this change, the WMF however assumes responsibilities that it currently does not have. It currently does not take responsibility for the way Brion has too much on his plate to finish the many things he did not finish. It can at this moment selfishly urge Brion to do whatever because of WMF priorities.
When the WMF takes responsibility for MediaWiki, it should take much more notice of all the other organisations that use MediaWiki and have developed their own changes to accommodate needs that the WMF does not feel for its projects. Doing this will bring the power of all the people who also developing MW, and it will bring the need for integration and support that has not really been addressed up to now.
If this move is intended to bring more volunteer developers to MediaWiki I am afraid that it is just window dressing. It will not make much of a difference because people come and stay as they like. If you TRULY want more developers, having someone dedicated to coaching the people who are new to the MediaWiki code would make much more of a difference. Having someone coach people who are doing projects and stuff in Universities would really help.
Sure, MediaWiki is strategic to the Wikimedia Foundation. It is not only strategic to the WMF. In order to take the role of "owning" the project, it is important that the WMF considers how this new role gives responsibilities and if the WMF wants to take up this burden.
Thanks, GerardM
On 1/6/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
I'd like to reopen the discussion about whether we officially consider MediaWiki a project of the Wikimedia Foundation. Currently, the position of the Foundation on this issue appears somewhat ambiguous. While we run the Subversion repository, the website, the mailing lists, and pay the two lead developers, MediaWiki is listed, for example, on: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Our_projects
not as a Wikimedia project, but as a "related project." It is also not part of our usual list of projects. On the other hand, mediawiki.org carries the "A Wikimedia Project" button.
My view is that we should make this the consistent, official view and consistently promote and list MediaWiki as a Wikimedia Foundation project wherever other Wikimedia projects are listed. My hope is that, in doing so, we will make MediaWiki more prominent and attract more volunteers to work on it, just as on other Wikimedia Foundation projects. I also believe that this will help in making MediaWiki strategy a key part of the Foundation's general project strategy.
What are other people's thoughts? The only downside I can see is that this might be seen as a move to exercise additional control over the direction of development. But already, all major code changes to the core have to be approved by Brion, who is a Foundation employee. I actually think it will be easier to identify our responsibility towards outside users if we consider MediaWiki to be a key part of the free culture movement that the Wikimedia Foundation must support.
-- Peace & Love, Erik
DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
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