[Pkg-mediawiki-devel] Debian: MediaWiki for Jessie and invitation to MediaWiki for the third party community

[Mark A. Hershberger]

We first began working more closely with Debian to put our first LTS (MW 1.19) into Debian's Wheezy.  This spring, we released our second LTS (1.23) which I hope can make it into Debian's Jessie release.

My partner, Markus Glaser, and I have been working with the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) to support packagers like Debian and third party (non-WMF) users of MediaWiki.

I hope that the Debian developers who have been working on the MediaWiki package will be able to join us via Webstreaming (if not in person in London) this coming Sunday as we begin to shape the future of MediaWiki.  Details follow in Markus' attached email.

Thanks,

Mark.

P.S. If you are in London this Wednesday, I'd like to invite you to the Developer Discussion that we're hosting as well.  Please email me if you would like to attend.  https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hackathon#Developer_Discussion

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: "Markus Glaser" <glaser at hallowelt.biz>
Sent: Monday, August 4, 2014 7:40:00 AM
Subject: [Mediawiki-enterprise] MediaWiki for the third party community: get involved!

Hello everyone,

the Wiki Release Team invites you to get involved in a much needed effort to build a separate entity that cares about the third party use of MediaWiki.  We ask for your involvement and participation because, as a community, we need to drive MediaWiki!

Be a part of something big! 

1.    Join our mailing list of interested people on wikireleaseteam.org [1]
2.    Attend our first meeting [2]:
       Wikimania London
       Sunday, August 10, 2014 at 11:30AM GMT
       Hammerson Room and/or webstreaming         
3.    Help us help you by providing feedback and comments as we work through an environmental scan and development roadmap

With the formation of the release team, a first step has been taken to separate the releases from the deployment process. Now is the time to tackle the task of building and working our way towards an organisation that cares for MediaWiki as a software product. This organisation will foster the MediaWiki third-party community, facilitate the exchange of ideas and resources among the third-party users, advocate the third-party needs, and advise the MediaWiki development from the third party perspective.

Spreading open knowledge is not just about content, but also about tools. However, third party users of MediaWiki have very specific needs that are naturally of minor interest to running Wikimedia sites. These include the installer, support for different platforms and databases, integration with other software, extension dependencies, and packaging, just to name a few.

Our mission, far from being complete, is just beginning.  With your help and involvement we can make an impact to improve MediaWiki for the third party community.

Best,
Mark Hershberger and Markus Glaser
Wiki Release Team

[1] http://wikireleaseteam.org/
[2] https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/How_about_a_MediaWiki_Consortium%3F

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-- 
Mark A. Hershberger
NicheWork LLC
717-271-1084