Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On Sun, Jun 10, 2012 at 10:03 PM, Tim Starling tstarl...@wikimedia.org wrote: On 09/06/12 09:46, Rob Lanphier wrote: I've long mused out loud about this possibility, but I've become less certain over time that this is a good outcome based on what happened with Mozilla Messaging (spun out to work on Thunderbird, then folded back into Mozilla). The overhead of yet another organization wasn't worth it for them, and probably won't be worth it for us. The two organisations would have to compete for senior staff, instead of the time allocation being internally managed. I'm not sure who would win. The competition would be a fine thing. That's not the issue. It's the challenge of making sure the separate organization has the administrative ability to compete for the talent, which is a lot of overhead to set up. We could do better than how we're doing now, if the WMF executive recognised it as something we can legitimately spend time on. Actually, I believe WMF executives (depending on which ones you're referring to) think that some investment in this area is perfectly reasonable. Many of the tradeoff decisions you may be frustrated with are quite likely ones I've made personally (implicitly or explicity), so let's not focus on the unnamed powers-that-be. What level of investment do you believe we should be putting in here? We're still planning to actually publish the tarballs and issue security releases. We might even get in there and fix some installer bugs as the crop up. Sure, there's all types of work that would make MediaWiki for third parties great: * Making it so that Linux distro installs are great out of the box * Distro-native packages are created automatically for all extensions * Web-based installation and upgrading of extensions ala Wordpress * Much smarter default install/configuration of MediaWiki+essential extensions However, even assuming we agree these are the most obvious things to work on (I suspect your list is different) we're far more likely to find motivated volunteers to make this all happen than we are to put a sustained effort on this stuff ourselves. There are many things that benefit us *and* third parties: * Visual editor * Configuration database (i.e. make $wg* die in a fire) - slated for next year * Lua * Mobile support in MediaWiki core I'm pretty sure that for every third-party-only feature idea we could come up with has a pretty compelling benefit everyone counterpart. Just because a separate standalone MediaWiki entity isn't necessarily viable, that doesn't mean that we can't figure out how to make the release process a little more community-driven, so I'm glad there seems to be momentum around outside contributors participating more actively here. The problem with community involvement is that the community is continually undermined by the WMF, which hires all the best volunteer developers and assigns them to work on things that benefit the Wikimedia wikis. Unlike most for-profit ventures, we're not planning to expand indefinitely. Even if we did, reality would likely intervene to keep us from getting very far. So, this is, at worst, mostlya temporary problem. Moreover, is it that much of a problem? It's not like those people are being forced to work here. Careful, don't volunteer to develop on MediaWiki, or you might find yourself with a JOB that you get PAID for. :-) Many of the volunteers that we hire were already working on Wikimedia-specific stuff. I know there are plenty of cases where volunteers have been working on third-party-specific features that we've hired, but it's not clear they would have had the time/energy to continue at the pace that they were sans a job from us (especially those that started as volunteers while going to school). Doesn't the WMF have a responsibility to contribute back to the community from which it draws so much code and talent? If we had a private fork of the code, I'd accept this as a criticism. We publish the source code, and I think we're generally pretty good at being mindful about how the software will work for third parties. This also gets back to the structural problem I've referred to. Given the choice between: a. Something that benefits Wikimedia sites, but not third party sites b. Something that benefits Wikimedia sites and third-party sites c. Something that benefits third-party sites, but not Wikimedia sites ...we're frequently going to shoot for b, sometimes only achieve a, and rarely even aim for c. It's just the nature of how we're set up, and it's also not smart for us to throw a lot of resources at c. We have so much to do in category b alone to keep us busy for a very long time. We do put some work into category c, and we're not planning to pull back from that. My point is that this is an area that is very well suited to outside/volunteer work, since after all, outsiders will be far more motivated to do a great job than we will. Rob
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On 12 June 2012 21:45, Rob Lanphier ro...@wikimedia.org wrote: We're still planning to actually publish the tarballs and issue security releases. We might even get in there and fix some installer bugs as the crop up. Sure, there's all types of work that would make MediaWiki for third parties great: * Making it so that Linux distro installs are great out of the box * Distro-native packages are created automatically for all extensions * Web-based installation and upgrading of extensions ala Wordpress * Much smarter default install/configuration of MediaWiki+essential extensions However, even assuming we agree these are the most obvious things to work on (I suspect your list is different) we're far more likely to find motivated volunteers to make this all happen than we are to put a sustained effort on this stuff ourselves. Motivated volunteers - e.g. people like me who use the tarballs - are probably the right people for the job 'cos we'd be scratching our itches. (I suppose this means I have to actually do things now.) We do put some work into category c, and we're not planning to pull back from that. My point is that this is an area that is very well suited to outside/volunteer work, since after all, outsiders will be far more motivated to do a great job than we will. Precisely :-) So is there a good Bugzilla query for tarball-related matters? From hideous bugs to little papercut annoyances. - d. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On Tue, Jun 12, 2012 at 1:58 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: Motivated volunteers - e.g. people like me who use the tarballs - are probably the right people for the job 'cos we'd be scratching our itches. (I suppose this means I have to actually do things now.) Bwahahaha...he falls right into my trap :) So is there a good Bugzilla query for tarball-related matters? From hideous bugs to little papercut annoyances. I'd say searching for installer bugs is one good list: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/buglist.cgi?list_id=122576resolution=---resolution=LATERquery_format=advancedcomponent=Installerproduct=MediaWiki Also, searching for postgresql is interesting: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/buglist.cgi?title=Special%3ASearchquicksearch=postgresqllist_id=122577 ...or just looking at the PostgreSQL tracking bug for a cleaner list: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/showdependencytree.cgi?id=384hide_resolved=1 The most important bugs (mixed in with lots of good for everyone bugs) are here: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/buglist.cgi?cmdtype=runnamednamedcmd=1.20%20release%20blockerslist_id=122578 Hope this helps! Rob ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On 8 June 2012 02:32, Tim Starling tstarl...@wikimedia.org wrote: I've long believed that MediaWiki should be considered a project of the WMF, on the same level as the wikis we host. It's quite definitely on-mission: it makes this form of knowledge-spreading normal and expected. (Of course, just consider the perennial cries for WMF support from non-Wikipedia products ...) Perhaps if we included donation requests on the download and installer pages then MediaWiki might be considered worthy of some attention in its own right? A help MediaWiki, donate to WMF link next to the download button strikes me as entirely appropriate. I assume our fundraising includes some way to tell what links are on the path to a given successful donation. - d. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On 7 June 2012 18:55, Chad innocentkil...@gmail.com wrote: Looking at the Ubuntu package[0], there's a *bunch* of other patches Have these all been upstreamed (some obviously have, and some are backports) [0] http://packages.ubuntu.com/quantal/web/mediawiki By the way - that's still MW 1.15. Is it too late for Ubuntu 12.10 to pull MW 1.19 from Debian? - d. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
The debian import freeze for ubuntu 12.10 is at july 5th[0]. They import testing and/or unstable, and they both have 1.15. The MediaWiki 1.19 package is in experimental currently[1], but I don't really know why. Maybe ask the maintainer to push the 1.19 package to testing? [0] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QuantalQuetzal/ReleaseSchedule [1] http://packages.debian.org/experimental/mediawiki On Sun, Jun 10, 2012 at 9:50 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 7 June 2012 18:55, Chad innocentkil...@gmail.com wrote: Looking at the Ubuntu package[0], there's a *bunch* of other patches Have these all been upstreamed (some obviously have, and some are backports) [0] http://packages.ubuntu.com/quantal/web/mediawiki By the way - that's still MW 1.15. Is it too late for Ubuntu 12.10 to pull MW 1.19 from Debian? - d. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On 06/10/2012 04:15 PM, Martijn Hoekstra wrote: The debian import freeze for ubuntu 12.10 is at july 5th[0]. ... Maybe ask the maintainer to push the 1.19 package to testing? I discussed this with them last week and that is the current plan. It is being vetted in experimental before it gets pushed to testing. Mark. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On 09/06/12 09:46, Rob Lanphier wrote: I've long mused out loud about this possibility, but I've become less certain over time that this is a good outcome based on what happened with Mozilla Messaging (spun out to work on Thunderbird, then folded back into Mozilla). The overhead of yet another organization wasn't worth it for them, and probably won't be worth it for us. The two organisations would have to compete for senior staff, instead of the time allocation being internally managed. I'm not sure who would win. That said, I think there is a structural problem here, and I'm glad Mark has started the process of making release management something that has more volunteer involvement. The needs of running the Wikimedia family of websites are strikingly different than the needs of small websites who want a simple-to-install wiki. For that matter, they are very different than the needs of large websites that need wiki software, but consider it a commodity that they don't want to think about very much, rather than as their core product. Without the concerted involvement of people who understand and are good at balancing those concerns, we'll do a poor job of serving those folks. We'll be able to empathize and guess, and probably continue to do alright, but due to human+organizational nature, it'll probably never be as great as it could be. We could do better than how we're doing now, if the WMF executive recognised it as something we can legitimately spend time on. Just because a separate standalone MediaWiki entity isn't necessarily viable, that doesn't mean that we can't figure out how to make the release process a little more community-driven, so I'm glad there seems to be momentum around outside contributors participating more actively here. The problem with community involvement is that the community is continually undermined by the WMF, which hires all the best volunteer developers and assigns them to work on things that benefit the Wikimedia wikis. Doesn't the WMF have a responsibility to contribute back to the community from which it draws so much code and talent? -- Tim Starling ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
8 Июнь 2012 г. 5:33:06 пользователь Tim Starling (tstarl...@wikimedia.org) написал: On 07/06/12 03:36, Mark A. Hershberger wrote: The Foundation has made MediaWiki available for everyone and that's a great thing. But Wikimedia's funding comes from donations as a result of requests on Wikipedia, not from distribution of MediaWiki, so they are rightly focused on their production cluster. I've long believed that MediaWiki should be considered a project of the WMF, on the same level as the wikis we host. Perhaps if we included donation requests on the download and installer pages then MediaWiki might be considered worthy of some attention in its own right? -- Tim Starling MediaWiki is quite worth itself for many different projects. Additional funding could be received by expanding the commercial support of another MediaWiki-based projects. Also by making MediaWiki more CMS-like (despite the countless warnings that MW is not CMS, it becomes more and more CMS-like with every version, especially when bundled with extensions). With Router, Actions, also with non-wikitext page views in development (WikiData), semantic, ACL extensions and so on. Perhaps MediaWiki could become something like Confluence but in PHP. I don't know. Speaking of tarballs, I was quite surprised that non-recommended to use, non-tarball 1.18-wmf1 has 'mediawiki.jqueryMsg.js' ResourceLoader module, while newer and recommended 1.18.2 / 1.18.3 tarball has not. Dmitriy ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 12:55 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: *Not while they need to exist*. At the least, we need to document when a distro does something weirdarse. I started filling in the list in terms of the directory structure. Hopefully one of the package maintainers will look at it (with Cunningham's Law applying as necessary). (I see the MediaWiki page on the Debian wiki is proposed for deletion ...) As it has been for four years. :-) On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 9:32 PM, Tim Starling tstarl...@wikimedia.orgwrote: I've long believed that MediaWiki should be considered a project of the WMF, on the same level as the wikis we host. Perhaps if we included donation requests on the download and installer pages then MediaWiki might be considered worthy of some attention in its own right? If MediaWiki is currently underserved and would only receive attention from the WMF by virtue of its revenue generation (rather than its contribution to the WMF's mission), maybe it needs a separate (subsidiary?) organization to address the needs of third-party users. Third-party users could donate money (or buy support, as with Canonical vis-à-vis Ubuntu) with the knowledge that it will be spent on the things they need done. Anyway, musings aside, soliciting donations through the software could be a neat experiment. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 9:32 PM, Tim Starling tstarl...@wikimedia.org wrote: On 07/06/12 03:36, Mark A. Hershberger wrote: The Foundation has made MediaWiki available for everyone and that's a great thing. But Wikimedia's funding comes from donations as a result of requests on Wikipedia, not from distribution of MediaWiki, so they are rightly focused on their production cluster. I've long believed that MediaWiki should be considered a project of the WMF, on the same level as the wikis we host. Perhaps if we included donation requests on the download and installer pages then MediaWiki might be considered worthy of some attention in its own right? I really don't like this idea. Maybe it's just me--but I *hate* when software includes a donation screen. Donation buttons/banners/flashing red lights on the site are fine and dandy, but those kinds of Please donate pages in software just scream GIVE US MONEY at me. Especially ones that continue to pop up on each upgrade. -Chad ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On Fri, Jun 8, 2012 at 4:02 AM, Benjamin Lees emufarm...@gmail.com wrote: On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 9:32 PM, Tim Starling tstarl...@wikimedia.orgwrote: I've long believed that MediaWiki should be considered a project of the WMF, on the same level as the wikis we host. Perhaps if we included donation requests on the download and installer pages then MediaWiki might be considered worthy of some attention in its own right? If MediaWiki is currently underserved and would only receive attention from the WMF by virtue of its revenue generation (rather than its contribution to the WMF's mission), maybe it needs a separate (subsidiary?) organization to address the needs of third-party users. Third-party users could donate money (or buy support, as with Canonical vis-à-vis Ubuntu) with the knowledge that it will be spent on the things they need done. I've long mused out loud about this possibility, but I've become less certain over time that this is a good outcome based on what happened with Mozilla Messaging (spun out to work on Thunderbird, then folded back into Mozilla). The overhead of yet another organization wasn't worth it for them, and probably won't be worth it for us. That said, I think there is a structural problem here, and I'm glad Mark has started the process of making release management something that has more volunteer involvement. The needs of running the Wikimedia family of websites are strikingly different than the needs of small websites who want a simple-to-install wiki. For that matter, they are very different than the needs of large websites that need wiki software, but consider it a commodity that they don't want to think about very much, rather than as their core product. Without the concerted involvement of people who understand and are good at balancing those concerns, we'll do a poor job of serving those folks. We'll be able to empathize and guess, and probably continue to do alright, but due to human+organizational nature, it'll probably never be as great as it could be. I think MediaWiki as a standalone product suffers from some of the same problems as Bugzilla as a standalone product. Since both are byproducts of each organization serving a different mission than make great general purpose software in category X, it's difficult to dedicate the kind of attention necessary to make both great general-purpose products, which is sad, because the world needs great general purpose products in both areas. In fact, even the areas that WMF could benefit greatly from, we seldom muster the energy (such as in the area of integration between the MediaWiki and Bugzilla akin to the much-touted integration between Confluence and JIRA). In answer to Tim, I've lobbed the idea out there of MediaWiki-focused fundraising to WMF people outside of WMF Engineering, to somewhat lukewarm response in the past. It may be possible that the time wasn't right, or that my pitch sucked (it was admittedly not a fully polished proposal, but just a casual suggestion). That said, I suspect the people who deal with bringing in money generally have an even stronger Wikimedia-project focus than I'm expressing here. Standalone MediaWiki goals are not on the 5 year plan; not even on next fiscal year's plan, so it's hard to invest direct Wikimedia resources in this area beyond what we're already doing. Just because a separate standalone MediaWiki entity isn't necessarily viable, that doesn't mean that we can't figure out how to make the release process a little more community-driven, so I'm glad there seems to be momentum around outside contributors participating more actively here. Rob ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On 6 June 2012 23:53, Mark A. Hershberger m...@everybody.org wrote: By the way, I noticed today that this page exists and is in sore need of updating: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Running_MediaWiki_on_Debian_GNU/Linux - d. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
We should kill those distro-specific pages and I've been saying that for years. Most of the advice ends up being rather generic, it forks the content, and they generally end up being abandoned and out of date. -Chad On Jun 7, 2012 10:26 AM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 6 June 2012 23:53, Mark A. Hershberger m...@everybody.org wrote: By the way, I noticed today that this page exists and is in sore need of updating: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Running_MediaWiki_on_Debian_GNU/Linux - d. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On 7 June 2012 16:26, Chad innocentkil...@gmail.com wrote: We should kill those distro-specific pages and I've been saying that for years. Most of the advice ends up being rather generic, it forks the content, and they generally end up being abandoned and out of date. *Not while they need to exist*. At the least, we need to document when a distro does something weirdarse. And this particularly applies to Debian, which does a pile of weirdarse things, to fit in with the weirdarse things they do with Apache. (Which the distro-specific page also needs to list.) This will increase the probability that people like me will actually use the distro version rather than finding it a weird unsupported fork. Of course, this requires a list of weird things Debian does. Is there such a list? (I see the MediaWiki page on the Debian wiki is proposed for deletion ...) I'll start hacking that page to bits, on the assumption that it needs burning and starting over. What is Debian's mailing list for MediaWiki? I went looking for it and couldn't find it ... - d. - d. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On 06/07/2012 12:55 PM, David Gerard wrote: I'll start hacking that page to bits, on the assumption that it needs burning and starting over. What is Debian's mailing list for MediaWiki? I went looking for it and couldn't find it ... http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-mediawiki-devel/ ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On 7 June 2012 18:07, Mark A. Hershberger m...@everybody.org wrote: On 06/07/2012 12:55 PM, David Gerard wrote: I'll start hacking that page to bits, on the assumption that it needs burning and starting over. What is Debian's mailing list for MediaWiki? I went looking for it and couldn't find it ... http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-mediawiki-devel/ kewl :-) Quick page here, with no pretensions to being a manual page. Links to the existing pages, all of which are indeed obsolete. I'll add to this as I go. https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Debian/Ubuntu - d. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On 07/06/12 00:53, Mark A. Hershberger wrote: I'd happily add hooks they needed to remove the need of patching for MediaWiki packagers, or including a script to move if that's what they really want. Packaging is happening right now. Look at the patches they're making here: http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/pkg-mediawiki/mediawiki/trunk/debian/patches/ A supported release shouldn't need any patching... Let's look at them: series 319 2 days jmw Don't use fix_invalid_sql_2.patch after all, it appears to be fixed upstream Good :) (although 'it appears to be fixed' sadly means that it wasn't linked to a bug number in our tracker, from which it can be confirmed) == fix_invalid_sql.patch == It is converting an INSERT IGNORE into an insert, following a bug report at https://evolvis.org/tracker/index.php?func=detailaid=1377group_id=39atid=378 then moved to http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=615983 I haven't found it on our bugtracker. Not explicity said on the bug report, the backtrace reveals it is happening with PostgreSQL backend. DatabasePostgres::insert() contains code to deal with INSERT IGNORE since d5b71 (July 2008), and it seems to have been doing something even before. But it was missing in the insertSelect wrapper. That's bug 18909. https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18909 which got fixed in r58179 (October 2009) and got into 1.16. The backtrace in the 2011 bug does show that their DatabasePostgres wrapper didn't contain insertSelect() method (confirmed by reporting the bug against 1.15.3). == mimetypes.patch == Changes $wgMimeTypeFile from includes/mime.types; to /etc/mime.types, fair one. == suppress_warnings.patch == Changes session_start(); to @session_start(); inside a pair of wfSuppressWarnings() wfSuppressWarnings(). WRONG. The patch is not needed. Moreover, it was an @session_start() until Tim changed it to wfSuppressWarnings() in fbfb50 (March 2008). Previosuly it had been changed from session_start() to @session_start() by Gabriel Wicke in 90aadf7 (April 2004). So this patch has been unneeded at least for 8 years :) (svn history suggests that it was created in 2010, not knowing that wfSuppressWarnings actually deals with php warnings) == texvc_location.patch == Adds $wgTexvc = '/usr/bin/texvc'; to DefaultSettings.php (plus a comment). Useless change. That's not enough to make math work. The math tag was been splitted to a separate extension in 1.18. So the user would *also* need to include the math extension in LocalSettings. That line should go in the extension package, not in MediaWiki DefaultSettings.php = Summary = Out of 4 patches, only 1 seems to be 'useful'. Even that, it could be moved to a different file instead of a core hack. Are they using something like a /etc/mediawiki.d/ folder? So yes, I'm happy we are improving collaboration packagers - upstream. Regards ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 1:45 PM, Platonides platoni...@gmail.com wrote: On 07/06/12 00:53, Mark A. Hershberger wrote: I'd happily add hooks they needed to remove the need of patching for MediaWiki packagers, or including a script to move if that's what they really want. Packaging is happening right now. Look at the patches they're making here: http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/pkg-mediawiki/mediawiki/trunk/debian/patches/ A supported release shouldn't need any patching... Let's look at them: series 319 2 days jmw Don't use fix_invalid_sql_2.patch after all, it appears to be fixed upstream Good :) (although 'it appears to be fixed' sadly means that it wasn't linked to a bug number in our tracker, from which it can be confirmed) == fix_invalid_sql.patch == It is converting an INSERT IGNORE into an insert, following a bug report at https://evolvis.org/tracker/index.php?func=detailaid=1377group_id=39atid=378 then moved to http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=615983 I haven't found it on our bugtracker. Not explicity said on the bug report, the backtrace reveals it is happening with PostgreSQL backend. DatabasePostgres::insert() contains code to deal with INSERT IGNORE since d5b71 (July 2008), and it seems to have been doing something even before. But it was missing in the insertSelect wrapper. That's bug 18909. https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18909 which got fixed in r58179 (October 2009) and got into 1.16. The backtrace in the 2011 bug does show that their DatabasePostgres wrapper didn't contain insertSelect() method (confirmed by reporting the bug against 1.15.3). == mimetypes.patch == Changes $wgMimeTypeFile from includes/mime.types; to /etc/mime.types, fair one. == suppress_warnings.patch == Changes session_start(); to @session_start(); inside a pair of wfSuppressWarnings() wfSuppressWarnings(). WRONG. The patch is not needed. Moreover, it was an @session_start() until Tim changed it to wfSuppressWarnings() in fbfb50 (March 2008). Previosuly it had been changed from session_start() to @session_start() by Gabriel Wicke in 90aadf7 (April 2004). So this patch has been unneeded at least for 8 years :) (svn history suggests that it was created in 2010, not knowing that wfSuppressWarnings actually deals with php warnings) == texvc_location.patch == Adds $wgTexvc = '/usr/bin/texvc'; to DefaultSettings.php (plus a comment). Useless change. That's not enough to make math work. The math tag was been splitted to a separate extension in 1.18. So the user would *also* need to include the math extension in LocalSettings. That line should go in the extension package, not in MediaWiki DefaultSettings.php = Summary = Out of 4 patches, only 1 seems to be 'useful'. Even that, it could be moved to a different file instead of a core hack. Are they using something like a /etc/mediawiki.d/ folder? So yes, I'm happy we are improving collaboration packagers - upstream. Looking at the Ubuntu package[0], there's a *bunch* of other patches Have these all been upstreamed (some obviously have, and some are backports) -Chad [0] http://packages.ubuntu.com/quantal/web/mediawiki ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On 06/07/2012 01:45 PM, Platonides wrote: So yes, I'm happy we are improving collaboration packagers - upstream. Thanks for looking at it! I'll make sure they see your comments. Mark. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On 07/06/12 03:36, Mark A. Hershberger wrote: The Foundation has made MediaWiki available for everyone and that's a great thing. But Wikimedia's funding comes from donations as a result of requests on Wikipedia, not from distribution of MediaWiki, so they are rightly focused on their production cluster. I've long believed that MediaWiki should be considered a project of the WMF, on the same level as the wikis we host. Perhaps if we included donation requests on the download and installer pages then MediaWiki might be considered worthy of some attention in its own right? -- Tim Starling ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
[Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
In the past couple of weeks I've been talking with Sam Reed (WMF's current MediaWiki release manager) and Rob Laphiner (WMF's Platform Engineering Director) about the future of MediaWiki tarballs. I began this discussion after Rob expressed regret about the WMF's ability to give tarball distribution the attention it deserves. Since the WMF is focused on maintaining Wikipedia and its sister projects, tarball distribution often loses among competing priorities. The Foundation has made MediaWiki available for everyone and that's a great thing. But Wikimedia's funding comes from donations as a result of requests on Wikipedia, not from distribution of MediaWiki, so they are rightly focused on their production cluster. Other users of the MediaWiki software have different needs. For instance, Citizendium, and Wikia and have both pegged their MediaWiki installations at 1.16.5 for stability and made their own modifications -- essentially forking the code. Forking is not ideal, but it is understandable because there is no cooperation around individual MediaWiki releases over the long term. With a third party to manage MediaWiki releases and maintain long term support for selected releases, cooperation between non-WMF users would be smoother. To this start effort, I welcome interested collaborators from the community of MediaWiki users outside of the WMF. With your help, we will start making and maintaining MediaWiki releases based on the core MediaWiki code without forking development. I've been discussing this with some MediaWiki sites as well as setting up a separate mailing list for packagers (such as Debian and RedHat distributors) and discussing it there. So far the response has been positive. So now I'm asking you guys. Any interest? -- http://hexmode.com/ Find peace within yourself and there will be peace on heaven and earth. -- Abba Isaac ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On 6 June 2012 18:36, Mark A. Hershberger m...@everybody.org wrote: I've been discussing this with some MediaWiki sites as well as setting up a separate mailing list for packagers (such as Debian and RedHat distributors) and discussing it there. So far the response has been positive. Speaking as a tarball consumer, with a great interest in the future of tarballs (though I'm unlikely to be knowledgeable enough to package them) - is there any reason this list should be separate from mediawiki-l? At least it should be announced there. - d. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
Definitely interested! I have just finished some packaging for the Web App Gallery and would like to see (and add) some more flexibility to the installer. Also, at SF Hackathon, we had some discussion about the use of MediaWiki by outside parties, their issues and how to make their lives easier ;) Cheers, Markus -Ursprüngliche Nachricht- Von: wikitech-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wikitech-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] Im Auftrag von Mark A. Hershberger Gesendet: Mittwoch, 6. Juni 2012 19:36 An: developers, Wikimedia Betreff: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF In the past couple of weeks I've been talking with Sam Reed (WMF's current MediaWiki release manager) and Rob Laphiner (WMF's Platform Engineering Director) about the future of MediaWiki tarballs. I began this discussion after Rob expressed regret about the WMF's ability to give tarball distribution the attention it deserves. Since the WMF is focused on maintaining Wikipedia and its sister projects, tarball distribution often loses among competing priorities. The Foundation has made MediaWiki available for everyone and that's a great thing. But Wikimedia's funding comes from donations as a result of requests on Wikipedia, not from distribution of MediaWiki, so they are rightly focused on their production cluster. Other users of the MediaWiki software have different needs. For instance, Citizendium, and Wikia and have both pegged their MediaWiki installations at 1.16.5 for stability and made their own modifications -- essentially forking the code. Forking is not ideal, but it is understandable because there is no cooperation around individual MediaWiki releases over the long term. With a third party to manage MediaWiki releases and maintain long term support for selected releases, cooperation between non-WMF users would be smoother. To this start effort, I welcome interested collaborators from the community of MediaWiki users outside of the WMF. With your help, we will start making and maintaining MediaWiki releases based on the core MediaWiki code without forking development. I've been discussing this with some MediaWiki sites as well as setting up a separate mailing list for packagers (such as Debian and RedHat distributors) and discussing it there. So far the response has been positive. So now I'm asking you guys. Any interest? -- http://hexmode.com/ Find peace within yourself and there will be peace on heaven and earth. -- Abba Isaac ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
Definitely interested! I have just finished some packaging for the Web App Gallery and would like to see (and add) some more flexibility to the installer. Also, at SF Hackathon, we had some discussion about the use of MediaWiki by outside parties, their issues and how to make their lives easier ;) What did your discussions conclude? Also I agree that this is a marvellous idea. I personally am unable to help, but it has my support 100%. Thank you, Derric Atzrott ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
Just to clarify, as it's not particularly clear to me - you're looking for people willing to test, package and release MediaWiki? If so, I'd be happy to learn how. On 06/06/12 18:36, Mark A. Hershberger wrote: In the past couple of weeks I've been talking with Sam Reed (WMF's current MediaWiki release manager) and Rob Laphiner (WMF's Platform Engineering Director) about the future of MediaWiki tarballs. I began this discussion after Rob expressed regret about the WMF's ability to give tarball distribution the attention it deserves. Since the WMF is focused on maintaining Wikipedia and its sister projects, tarball distribution often loses among competing priorities. The Foundation has made MediaWiki available for everyone and that's a great thing. But Wikimedia's funding comes from donations as a result of requests on Wikipedia, not from distribution of MediaWiki, so they are rightly focused on their production cluster. Other users of the MediaWiki software have different needs. For instance, Citizendium, and Wikia and have both pegged their MediaWiki installations at 1.16.5 for stability and made their own modifications -- essentially forking the code. Forking is not ideal, but it is understandable because there is no cooperation around individual MediaWiki releases over the long term. With a third party to manage MediaWiki releases and maintain long term support for selected releases, cooperation between non-WMF users would be smoother. To this start effort, I welcome interested collaborators from the community of MediaWiki users outside of the WMF. With your help, we will start making and maintaining MediaWiki releases based on the core MediaWiki code without forking development. I've been discussing this with some MediaWiki sites as well as setting up a separate mailing list for packagers (such as Debian and RedHat distributors) and discussing it there. So far the response has been positive. So now I'm asking you guys. Any interest? ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On 06/06/2012 01:48 PM, David Gerard wrote: is there any reason this list should be separate from mediawiki-l? At least it should be announced there. Done. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On 06/06/2012 02:00 PM, Krenair wrote: Just to clarify, as it's not particularly clear to me - you're looking for people willing to test, package and release MediaWiki? If so, I'd be happy to learn how. Yes. I am willing to take on the tarball maintenance if needed, but if you are willing and able, I'll work with you to make sure we have a working tarball creation and release process from Sam Reed. But beyond that, we will need testers. Speaking of testing, if anyone wants to help make sure the 1.19 release of MediaWiki included in the next Debian package (and probably the next Ubuntu package) is working, now is the time to test. Debian will soon freeze their packages for their upcoming stable release. http://packages.debian.org/experimental/mediawiki -- http://hexmode.com/ Find peace within yourself and there will be peace on heaven and earth. -- Abba Isaac ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On 6 June 2012 19:20, Mark A. Hershberger m...@everybody.org wrote: Speaking of testing, if anyone wants to help make sure the 1.19 release of MediaWiki included in the next Debian package (and probably the next Ubuntu package) is working, now is the time to test. Debian will soon freeze their packages for their upcoming stable release. http://packages.debian.org/experimental/mediawiki Last I recalled, the Debian MediaWiki was regarded as a pit of gratuitous weirdness of sufficient extent that it was all but deprecated, and any sane admin installs from the tarball. Is this still the state of play, and if not then what improved? - d. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 2:25 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 6 June 2012 19:20, Mark A. Hershberger m...@everybody.org wrote: Speaking of testing, if anyone wants to help make sure the 1.19 release of MediaWiki included in the next Debian package (and probably the next Ubuntu package) is working, now is the time to test. Debian will soon freeze their packages for their upcoming stable release. http://packages.debian.org/experimental/mediawiki Last I recalled, the Debian MediaWiki was regarded as a pit of gratuitous weirdness of sufficient extent that it was all but deprecated, and any sane admin installs from the tarball. Is this still the state of play, and if not then what improved? Well since we introduced a CLI installer, it should make the process much cleaner for people packaging the wiki. I don't know what work has been done (if any), but the groundwork's been laid on our end. The other big complaint we've had over time is moving stuff around to the typical Debian-esque locations (eg: putting LocalSettings in /etc). Don't know what the status is on that though. -Chad ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On 06/06/2012 02:25 PM, David Gerard wrote: Last I recalled, the Debian MediaWiki was regarded as a pit of gratuitous weirdness of sufficient extent that it was all but deprecated, and any sane admin installs from the tarball. Is this still the state of play, and if not then what improved? I've heard this many times and, as a result, I have not tried the Debian Package. However, many people use their system's package. I don't know about you, but *I* don't want an awful Debian package to be people's first experience with MediaWiki. We can improve this situation and now is the perfect time to do that. Mark. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On 06/06/2012 02:29 PM, Chad wrote: Well since we introduced a CLI installer ... Side note: we re-introduced the CLI installer. I discovered this while tracking down ancient MediaWikis last week, an ancient version of MW (1.2?) used a command line install method. I'm sure the current one is much better, though. Mark. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On 6 June 2012 19:31, Mark A. Hershberger m...@everybody.org wrote: On 06/06/2012 02:25 PM, David Gerard wrote: Last I recalled, the Debian MediaWiki was regarded as a pit of gratuitous weirdness of sufficient extent that it was all but deprecated, and any sane admin installs from the tarball. Is this still the state of play, and if not then what improved? I've heard this many times and, as a result, I have not tried the Debian Package. However, many people use their system's package. I don't know about you, but *I* don't want an awful Debian package to be people's first experience with MediaWiki. We can improve this situation and now is the perfect time to do that. I'd *like* their package to be suitable. We use Ubuntu 10.04 at work, and 14.04 or the corresponding Debian as of late 2014 are the hot prospects for next refresh. So for me testing the Debian version depends on how well the lone debs install on what's effectively an old version ... - d. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 2:39 PM, Mark A. Hershberger m...@everybody.org wrote: On 06/06/2012 02:29 PM, Chad wrote: Well since we introduced a CLI installer ... Side note: we re-introduced the CLI installer. I discovered this while tracking down ancient MediaWikis last week, an ancient version of MW (1.2?) used a command line install method. I'm sure the current one is much better, though. Still needs some work, but yeah, it's better ;-) -Chad ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On 06/06/12 20:29, Chad wrote: Well since we introduced a CLI installer, it should make the process much cleaner for people packaging the wiki. I don't know what work has been done (if any), but the groundwork's been laid on our end. The other big complaint we've had over time is moving stuff around to the typical Debian-esque locations (eg: putting LocalSettings in /etc). Don't know what the status is on that though. -Chad The problem in the past was primarily lack of cooperation from the packagers. I remember years ago that Aryeh offered help in some bug trackers (with little/no response). I'd happily add hooks they needed to remove the need of patching for MediaWiki packagers, or including a script to move if that's what they really want. Also, it'd be cool if downstream maintainers, that are keeping security patches for old versions, did it in MediaWiki repo. * Cross-distro work. No need to independently patch or copy the patches from other distros. * Just one repository, no need of stacked patch queues. * Availability in the upstream official repo. * Easy for us to review/fix in case we spotted something there. * We could commit the fixes for the externally-lts-maintained branched at near-0 cost when backporting some fixes. Cons: * They need to request a gerrit account. * Yet another website for them to use. ? IMHO that's a win-win. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On 06/06/2012 04:55 PM, Platonides wrote: The problem in the past was primarily lack of cooperation from the packagers. I remember years ago that Aryeh offered help in some bug trackers (with little/no response). To encourage cooperation, I started the low-traffic mediawiki-distributors last week. I also asked Debian to work on packaging 1.19 instead of 1.18 for their impending freeze and have been working with them on their pkg-mediawiki-devel mailing list to do sane things with packaging. For example, today they were thinking about dropping wikidiff2 and (with Chad's input) I pointed out some problems with this. So, someone has stepped up to take on the work. I'd happily add hooks they needed to remove the need of patching for MediaWiki packagers, or including a script to move if that's what they really want. Packaging is happening right now. Look at the patches they're making here: http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/pkg-mediawiki/mediawiki/trunk/debian/patches/ Also, it'd be cool if downstream maintainers, that are keeping security patches for old versions, did it in MediaWiki repo. Absolutely. This is one of the main reasons that I want to tag 1.19 as a LTS version -- so we can continue to do our work in Gerrit without a problem. * Cross-distro work. No need to independently patch or copy the patches from other distros. * Just one repository, no need of stacked patch queues. * Availability in the upstream official repo. * Easy for us to review/fix in case we spotted something there. * We could commit the fixes for the externally-lts-maintained branched at near-0 cost when backporting some fixes. You read my mind! Mark. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
Also, at SF Hackathon, we had some discussion about the use of MediaWiki by outside parties, their issues and how to make their lives easier ;) What did your discussions conclude? Actually, it was even earlier...;) Discussion notes can be found at http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/NOLA_Hackathon/Saturday#Third-party_committers_help Cheers, Markus ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On 6 June 2012 23:53, Mark A. Hershberger m...@everybody.org wrote: To encourage cooperation, I started the low-traffic mediawiki-distributors last week. I also asked Debian to work on packaging 1.19 instead of 1.18 for their impending freeze and have been working with them on their pkg-mediawiki-devel mailing list to do sane things with packaging. For example, today they were thinking about dropping wikidiff2 and (with Chad's input) I pointed out some problems with this. So, someone has stepped up to take on the work. This is most promising! Absolutely. This is one of the main reasons that I want to tag 1.19 as a LTS version -- so we can continue to do our work in Gerrit without a problem. Oooh. How long do you roughly guess this means? - d. ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Re: [Wikitech-l] MediaWiki tarballs and the WMF
On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 7:08 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 6 June 2012 23:53, Mark A. Hershberger m...@everybody.org wrote: Absolutely. This is one of the main reasons that I want to tag 1.19 as a LTS version -- so we can continue to do our work in Gerrit without a problem. Oooh. How long do you roughly guess this means? 3-4 years. -Jeremy ___ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
