Hi ... I would like to know if the development lines of mediawiki will be extensively tied (or slown down) because of wikipedia ... The reason of my question, is that i am recently reading the mailing list , and show that developers and contributions are allways extensily closed to wikipedia requirements, not open to new ideas beyond enciclopedias. A general use wiki with mediawiki engine would be great, ( i am using it to developments documentation) ... but it lacks features like authentication and email notifications (i know the 1.4 plans on this features), that i think are being slown down by the WIKIPEDIA ...
What is your oppinion ???
Another branch of mediawiki with general features would be great.
regards
vic <vic <at> wickle.com> writes:
Hi ... I would like to know if the development lines of mediawiki will be extensively tied (or slown down) because of wikipedia ... The reason of my question, is that i am recently reading the mailing list , and show that developers and contributions are allways extensily closed to wikipedia requirements, not open to new ideas beyond enciclopedias. A general use wiki with mediawiki engine would be great, ( i am using it to developments documentation) ... but it lacks features like authentication and email notifications (i know the 1.4 plans on this features), that i think are being slown down by the WIKIPEDIA ...
What is your oppinion ???
Another branch of mediawiki with general features would be great.
regards
I wouldn't so much say that authentication or email notification is being slowed down by wikipedia (although i do imagine stuff like group/user based permissions is). The current version of my LDAP authentication patch has been submitted, and could probably be included in the 1.4 release (although it still needs bug testing by someone other than myself).
The current version is actually not meant for larger sites like wikipedia, but for smaller sites and internal use because it requires you to manage the LDAP objects manually (which most organizations that use it internally would prefer).
The next version i'm aiming to let the wiki create users, change passwords, etc. in the LDAP directory. This version will be aimed at large sites that are only using their directory for authentication to the wiki.
I would like the current version to be added to 1.4 if it is feasible.
Hello vic,
vic wrote:
Hi ... I would like to know if the development lines of mediawiki will be extensively tied (or slown down) because of wikipedia ... The reason of my question, is that i am recently reading the mailing list , and show that developers and contributions are allways extensily closed to wikipedia requirements, not open to new ideas beyond enciclopedias.
MediaWiki is originaly a hack of usedmodwiki to fits the need of wikipedia, it eventually got used by other people for different matters. Developpers are also somehow system administrators for wikimedia server farms.
A general use wiki with mediawiki engine would be great, ( i am using it to developments documentation) ... but it lacks features like authentication and email notifications (i know the 1.4 plans on this features), that i think are being slown down by the WIKIPEDIA ...
That's a call for new features, 1.4 have been under development for like 6 months and the .plan is to try to get it before the end of the year. I personally think we have to freeze new features right now and start beta testing. If we do so, new features will be included in january with a possible release (ex: 1.5 around april 2005).
The good point is there is already some patches floating around:
_ Enotif for email notification but it isn't in cvs yet. It looks complete and probably can be included in 1.4. _ LDAP authentication, the patch is small and available in bugzilla. I did not have the time to test it yet but it will certainly be included in 1.4 (relativly minor patch).
Another patch I personally made is a new system to manage users, it's not intend to wikipedia but a common request coming from the MediaWiki user base.
Also, I am not sure we want email notification in wikipedia, cause it also means the system team will have to manage two email servers and that will raise our bandwith usage. Anyway it is a great feature and deserves to be included in MediaWiki.
What is your oppinion ???
Another branch of mediawiki with general features would be great.
Na no more branch, it's complicate the developper work. Actually our branches are:
* 1_3 : used to release current stable releases (1.3.x) * 1_3A : tweaked 1_3 for wikipedia * HEAD : the future 1.4.x * SCHEMA_WORKS : a massive patch to change the database layout, will probably be 1_5 once HEAD is moved to 1_4.
That also mean each time something is patched in HEAD for 1.3 it needs to be backported to the 3 others branches.
In conclusion, MediaWiki development is a bit slow but it's moving. If you know about PHP and are interested in open source development you are welcome to join the team of developpers :o)
cheers,
On Nov 10, 2004, at 2:24 AM, vic wrote:
A general use wiki with mediawiki engine would be great, ( i am using it to developments documentation) ... but it lacks features like authentication
What does 'authentication' mean to you? Normally this means a password check to ensure that someone logging in as a particular user in fact is that user. Obviously this is something we already have... ;)
External authentication system plugins would also be nice, and some people have been starting on that; for instance there's an LDAP authentication patch which should be a good starting point if someone wants to take that up.
and email notifications (i know the 1.4 plans on this features), that i think are being slown down by the WIKIPEDIA ...
What is your oppinion ???
I'd say your opinions are not supported by fact. Wikipedia has nothing to do with the work on the e-mail notification feature; there are general issues still to be resolved with it (code style, generalizability, maintainability, correctness, extensibility, internationalization, etc), and Tom is *still working on it* -- it's not finished.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Brion Vibber wrote:
On Nov 10, 2004, at 2:24 AM, vic wrote:
A general use wiki with mediawiki engine would be great, ( i am using it to developments documentation) ... but it lacks features like authentication
What does 'authentication' mean to you? Normally this means a password check to ensure that someone logging in as a particular user in fact is that user. Obviously this is something we already have... ;)
One that came up for me is a feature to not allow new accounts to become active without an administrator approving them first. When combined with disallowing IP-user edits, this would allow MediaWiki to be used as an internal collaboration platform for not-open-to-the-public groups. Allowing only logged-in users to even read pages would be a nice feature in some such cases as well.
At the moment I implement this with .htaccess and a password, but that's non-ideal, because there's one global password for access to the wiki, which makes it easier for that one password to get leaked and less easy to control. It also means that if I want different users to have different accesses, I have to set up completely separate wikis in separate directories, and a user with access to two of them has to remember two different wiki-access passwords. If it were integrated with the user system it'd be cleaner, at least for my purposes.
Of course, I haven't complained (until now, I suppose) because I'm not (currently) offering to code it. =]
-Mark
On Nov 10, 2004, at 12:33 PM, Delirium wrote:
One that came up for me is a feature to not allow new accounts to become active without an administrator approving them first.
There is currently a feature to require that accounts be created by an administrator. ($wgWhitelistAccount)
When combined with disallowing IP-user edits, this would allow MediaWiki to be used as an internal collaboration platform for not-open-to-the-public groups. Allowing only logged-in users to even read pages would be a nice feature in some such cases as well.
$wgWhitelistEdit and $wgWhitelistRead already provide this.
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Brion Vibber wrote:
On Nov 10, 2004, at 12:33 PM, Delirium wrote:
One that came up for me is a feature to not allow new accounts to become active without an administrator approving them first.
There is currently a feature to require that accounts be created by an administrator. ($wgWhitelistAccount)
Excellent; I had missed that. Thanks!
-Mark
On Wed, 2004-10-11 at 15:33 -0500, Delirium wrote:
Brion Vibber wrote:
On Nov 10, 2004, at 2:24 AM, vic wrote:
A general use wiki with mediawiki engine would be great, ( i am using it to developments documentation) ... but it lacks features like authentication
What does 'authentication' mean to you? Normally this means a password check to ensure that someone logging in as a particular user in fact is that user. Obviously this is something we already have... ;)
One that came up for me is a feature to not allow new accounts to become active without an administrator approving them first. When combined with disallowing IP-user edits, this would allow MediaWiki to be used as an internal collaboration platform for not-open-to-the-public groups. Allowing only logged-in users to even read pages would be a nice feature in some such cases as well.
....
There is a distinction between authentication and authorization. Authentication is being who you say you are, and authorization is permission to do whatever is in question. I don't know how much of a distinction mediawiki makes between these two, but if we are talking about it we may as well be using the right terms.
vic wrote:
Hi ... I would like to know if the development lines of mediawiki will be extensively tied (or slown down) because of wikipedia ... The reason of my question, is that i am recently reading the mailing list , and show that developers and contributions are allways extensily closed to wikipedia requirements, not open to new ideas beyond enciclopedias. A general use wiki with mediawiki engine would be great, ( i am using it to developments documentation) ... but it lacks features like authentication and email notifications (i know the 1.4 plans on this features), that i think are being slown down by the WIKIPEDIA ...
What is your oppinion ???
Another branch of mediawiki with general features would be great.
Development for Wikimedia projects is excessively slowed down by the constant need to cater for non-Wikimedia users. A slow release cycle suits non-Wikimedia users, because they want the software to work out of the box. Security flaws exposed in a release can't be rapidly corrected, because it requires hundreds of users to upgrade their copy.
Wikimedia projects on the other hand would benefit from continuous introduction of features ported from the unstable branch, once a suitable testing sequence has been completed. Bugs, security flaws and other non-ideal behaviour can be easily corrected, since there is only one live copy to update. Currently, desparately needed features are delayed for many months because despite being tested, they are considered too unstable for release in a minor version increment. Readying the unstable branch itself for release requires many hours of work fixing half-completed features written by other people, committed and then abandoned by developers who have more interesting things to do. A methodology of continuous release to Wikimedia would at least provide an incentive for these developers to finish what they started.
In my opinion, non-Wikimedia users have no right to expect MediaWiki development to cater for them. Their needs are incidental. So I agree with the OP, on a practical level if not philosophically. Another branch would suit me just fine.
-- Tim Starling
Hi vid
I won't say that. I think the bigger problem is, that there are not a lot of plugins and extensions. If there would be more plugin-hackers, you could use inofficial software-extensions independant from wikipedia-standards and roadmaps.
As I said in other mails before, I'm currently analysing the software and will start to write howto's for plugin-developers as soon as the redesign of my homepage is finished. Maybe this will help people to start modifying mediawiki and allow normal users to have extended features.
I'm pretty new here, just my thoughts, I hope I'm not completely wrong ;) Joel
vic wrote:
Hi ... I would like to know if the development lines of mediawiki will be extensively tied (or slown down) because of wikipedia ... The reason of my question, is that i am recently reading the mailing list , and show that developers and contributions are allways extensily closed to wikipedia requirements, not open to new ideas beyond enciclopedias. A general use wiki with mediawiki engine would be great, ( i am using it to developments documentation) ... but it lacks features like authentication and email notifications (i know the 1.4 plans on this features), that i think are being slown down by the WIKIPEDIA ...
What is your oppinion ???
Another branch of mediawiki with general features would be great.
regards
wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org