On 01/08/2013 07:08 PM, James Forrester wrote:
On 4 January 2013 09:02, Mark A. Hershberger mah@everybody.org wrote:
Would it be possible to adapt the Visual Editor to run under 1.19?
Possible? Yes. However, it would involve back-porting a number of changes that have been made to core since then
Oh, so it's just a small matter of programming!
...
Still, the two changes you highlighted (http://hexm.de/og) are not too discouraging, at least after my first glance. I'll want to talk to Roan and Trevor to see how crazy they think this idea is. Since a few other people have already expressed interest (on and off list), I think it is worth pursuing for a little while.
I worry that you'd end up needing to create 1.19.4-ve_support branches that would be no easier than pushing to a 1.21 bleeding-edge branch, sadly.
I've no doubt that providing reasonable LTS support for MW would involve backporting some things. I've already seen where this is needed to support MobileFrontend on 1.19 for example.
But this sort of work is needed if we are serious about providing software that is appealing to users outside of the WMF. Of course, then we have to rely on non-WMF resources to accomplish this since supporting third party MW users isn't part of the core vision or values of the WMF.
Understood (though I didn't know about 1.19 being an LTS release; who is doing the supporting, exactly, and what does 'support' entail here? [*] is unclear…). [*] -
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/Tarball_maintenance
David Gerard seems to understand what I meant, but let me flush it out a bit more.
If you look at the survey of wikis that Daniel Zahn has collected on WikiStats (http://wikistats.wmflabs.org), you can see most wikis run on older versions.
I've contacted a few of the oldest ones and gotten them to upgrade. I've even helped a couple with the process.
Some older -- but moderately active -- wikis are hesitant to upgrade because they aren't sure how to handle of the modifications they've made.
This isn't the fault of the WMF or of MediaWiki developers, but for those of us who are interested in wikis other than the WMF's and our own personal wikis, it represents an opportunity.
Part of that opportunity can be met by providing third party users of MW with a relatively stable base to run their site on. Instead of an unpredictable upgrade cycle with disruptive changes (I've had to do s/tooltipAndAccesskey/tooltipAndAccesskeyAttribs/g too many times http://hexm.de/oh), MW developers can work to provide something more manageable.
The LTS version will not only help us to support Debian users (something we haven't wanted to commit to in the past), but also the individual with xyr own installation that wants something secure and upgradeable without too much hassle. Incidentally, larger users without a staff dedicated to wiki maintenance want this as well.
As I said, though, I don't expect WMF resources for this. If they're willing to help with security fixes, I'll be extremely happy. But if that is beyond their scope, then I'll find another source or do it myself.
Thanks,
Mark.