[Mediawiki-l] [SPAM] Re: Looking for MW Business Users

[George Herbert]

On 6/28/07, Michael Daly <michaeldaly at kayakwiki.org> wrote:
> Dave Sigafoos wrote:
>
> > a location where problems that have come up trying to do 'business'
> > things with MW are addressed.  As mentioned in my original post, these
> > are things that will probably never fit into the MW/WP world.  As you
> > mentioned 'access restriction', different reporting/special pages.
> > Processes that 'implementors' (probably better than business?) might
> > need that WikiWorld wont.
>
>
> This will sound more negative than I intend, but bear with me - I'll use
> a bit of hyperbole to make a point.
>
> The business community has been getting a free ride on Internet stuff
> for a long time now.  They have done little to contribute to the
> development of the Internet, WWW or much of anything else (network and
> software- or hardware-specific companies excepted).  Yet they have been
> quick to grab onto whatever they can and warp it into something it was
> not intended to be (e.g - the WWW, a document publishing mechanism
> became a transaction processing system with kludges to HTML etc to
> support retail operations).
>
> If the business community really needs something on the Internet, maybe
> they should put their money where their mouth is and make substantial
> contributions to the whole effort instead of taking stuff for free and
> expecting it to be modified to their wants.
>
> ----
> I see a lot of demand for the kind of secure/restricted/whatever
> versions of wikis for business.  I think that the business community
> should get together and _pay_ for such a system and then sell it to
> other businesses.  Leave the wikis to the wiki users and create a
> lightweight document management system for businesses if that's what
> they really want.
>
> Mike

You have the usual software development process backwards.

More often, someone thinks there's a demand, and forms a company to
fill the demand.

It's hard to make money enhancing GPLed code, however.  One can sell
support, and one can sell the improved code, but it remains GPLed and
you also have to give it away.  There are exceptions - the former
Cygnus Support, RedHat and the other Linux companies, MySQL AG.  But
those are the exceptions.

You're setting up a false dichotomy here, too.  You're suggesting that
the needs that business users have are incompatible with, or
detrimental to, the open use of MediaWiki by projects like WP (among
others).  I have to disagree.  Some business features might never get
turned on or used on a Wikipedia type project, but I don't think
they'd detract at all.  Having a single, common toolbase which
everyone could base projects off of would be good for a lot of things.
 MediaWiki has redefined the Wiki markup language and set performance
standards which stand head and shoulders above the competition, except
in a few business support areas.  Telling us to go do another program,
or the implied alternative (fork MW or something silly like that)
doesn't make any sense.  MW is an excellent tool in the sweet spot for
a lot of commercial use as well as community use.

Perhaps a new next-generation wiki tool will do better for everyone,
but as far as I know nobody's working on one.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com