[Foundation-l] Why is the software out of reach of the community?

[Aryeh Gregor]

On Tue, Jan 13, 2009 at 1:29 PM, Gazimoff <gazimoff at o2.co.uk> wrote:
> After downloading, installing and maintaining a low-traffic Mediawiki
> setup, I think the experience can be improved dramatically. It's clear
> that a heavy amount of work has been done on improving processing
> speed and providing additional functionality, but in terms of a
> polished experience it doesn't match publishing tools like phpbb or
> Wordpress. Whether this is due to versatility requirements, or a lack
> of focus on this as a design requirement, I'm not sure.

It's the latter.  MediaWiki development primarily focuses on
Wikipedia.  Most developers are drawn from the Wikipedia or at least
Wikimedia community, and the ones who do the most work tend to be paid
by the Wikimedia Foundation (mainly to do things for Wikimedia
projects).  Things only useful for third parties therefore tend to be
given less priority in practice.