[Foundation-l] Wikipedia meets git

[Milos Rancic]

For a couple of years I have an idea with another approach: Use
MediaWiki as a software repository. Actually, I am already doing so on
my local MediaWiki installation. I even had some python scripts (based
on pywikipediabot) which are dealing with importing and exporting
source code (but I don't know where are they now).

It is a perfect choice while we are talking about classical
implementations of VCSs. With distributed systems in the game, it is
necessary to make some more clever method for using MediaWiki for that
purpose. Actually, there is no need for a lot of coding. By using
flagged revisions and some control pages on wiki, it is possible to
have coherent system for version control.

For example, I may list page revisions which makes version
3.43.77-millosh at a separate page and I may download exactly that
version of some software.

I think that it is much better approach than using git or whatever for
software development purpose. Coding may be done by using some editor
or IDE on local system, but everything around: writing documentation,
comments, discussion and similar -- may be don on wiki. And I think
that we have all necessary tools for giving to MediaWiki such purpose,
as well as we don't need a lot of time for that: a couple of months at
most. Also, there wouldn't be a need for making API for git for the
basic purposes.

It would solve distributed Wikipedia issue, too. By using some naming
system, code/text may have "dynamic" (on MediaWiki installation) and
"static" (on file system) repositories (actually, both of them would
be dynamic).

It is possible that I've missed something. If it is so, please let me
know that :)