On 19/01/07, Anthere <Anthere9(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
I agree the term "related" does not describe
the current relationship
between MediaWiki and the Foundation. I think Brion gets it right in
saying "Wikimedia projects are the primary customers of the MediaWiki".
This being the case, we generally develop functionality with a
semi-defined project scope in mind for MediaWiki; it's a wiki engine,
mostly driven by the Wikimedia interpretation of a wiki.
A *lot* of what goes into MediaWiki (aside from bug fixes) is new
functionality developed *for* use on Wikimedia wikis; a lot of
extensions are developed to facilitate extras for Wikimedia. Having
said that, there *are* things going into development which Wikimedia
might never make use of, but which fall under the general scope of
what MediaWiki is supposed to function as; a lot of additional
extensions and plugins, for instance - stuff like LDAP authentication
and other corporate/academic-used features.
I don't see any real problem with the current interpretation of
things. MediaWiki is as open as Wikipedia - the code is licenced under
the GNU GPL and anyone who really feels strongly about it can fork it
quite happily at any time.
A huge number of organisations can and do take a vested interest in
developing the software to its fullest potential. The superb effort
going into things like Semantic MediaWiki and WiktionaryZ may never
have been on the agenda in 2003, and may not be completely adopted in
all Wikimedia projects, but they're very much in tune with what
MediaWiki is.
What is MediaWiki? It's a free form wiki engine which has a purpose.
That purpose is to make sharing of ideas, information and content easy
for anyone.
How is that counter to any Wikimedia ideology? It's not. I think
MediaWiki development works better when everyone feels they're in a
comfortable environment where they're free to work on their own
portions that interest them. Sure, they have to put up with me
swearing every so often...sure, they have to be careful. But I
personally, and I suspect others, have a nice comfortable feeling of
not having to be accountable to the Wikimedia Board of Trustees. I
like that; I can view all my users as equals.
In case it's not clear; I support the current status quo.
Rob Church