Question: assuming that our primary interest is
creating software for
Wikipedia and similar WMF projects, do we actually get anything from the
Windows PC intranet users that offsets the cost of keeping MediaWiki
friendly to both environments? In other words, do we get contributions
from them that help us do Wikipedia et al,?
As someone who originally started contributing from maintaining a
small MediaWiki instance, I kind of dislike this question. I also
don't think we should be mixing "we" when discussing WMF and
MediaWiki.
But to answer your question: yes. We get contributions, we get
employees, and we get a larger, more vibrant community. A number of
contributors come from enterprises and small shops, but they often
don't contribute directly to Wikimedia projects. However, their
contributions often allow other people to use the software in
environments they couldn't be used in otherwise (LDAP authentication
is a perfect example of this). The people who then get to use the
software may turn into contributors that do benefit WMF.
MediaWiki is created primarily for WMF use, but a lot of other people
depend on it. I advocate the use of the software by everyone, and
emphasize in talks that we want contributions from everyone, even if
they don't benefit WMF. I don't think we should discourage this. We
should really try harder to embrace enterprise users to get *more*
non-WMF specific extensions and features.
It doesn't take that much effort to keep core small, and maintain
extensions for WMF use. I honestly don't think this is a limiting
factor to the usability of WMF projects, either.
Respectfully,
Ryan Lane