Are you sure that the the discussion was only about creating an organization "focusing on 3rd party, non-Wikimedia use cases"? I thought the discussion (at least at the 2015 developer summit) was about creating a foundation that would take over the full development of MediaWiki, with Wikimedia sites as of course the primary stakeholder - a true "MediaWiki Foundation", employing many or most of the developers currently working for the WMF. Did I misunderstand the whole thing?

In T127312#2039733, @Yaron_Koren wrote:

Did I misunderstand the whole thing?

Yes...?

(For what is worth, this is not the place to discuss what this "spin-off" should be, neither we Developer Relations have any take on this. Just tell us if there is an ask that you want reflected in the WMF Annual Plan, and then we can talk.

Sorry for being so cold and materialistic, but ultimately this task is about adding or not a $ amount to the draft budget of the Developer Relations team for FY2016-17.)

As a non-WMF MediaWiki user in both enterprise and private practice, I'm interested in the outcome here. My take would be a specific MediaWiki Foundation with contribution from Wikimedia. However, I'm not so sure the current situation is that bad, if bad at all.

@Qgil, are you requesting proposals from prospective MediaWiki Foundation creators?

@Qgil since this is for the 2016-17 budget planning, which is already in full swing, I presume there is a time limit. Can you clarify?

This would be a disaster, in my opinion. The Wikimedia Foundation would inevitably fork, whether consciously and deliberately or not: there is going to be some Wikimedia Foundation developer under pressure to deliver a feature or a bugfix; upstream will be ambivalent or negative, so "just this once" it'll be merged without being upstreamed. The Foundation would drift further and further from upstream, and there will be so much cynicism, fragmentation, and mutual resentment, that the developer community will disintegrate.

So: no, per WP:NOTSUICIDE. We can't stop anyone from doing this, but I don't see why we should support it.

@ori you are assuming that the new organization would own the MediaWiki codebase in some sense, which is not necessary (and even if it would be wanted, it would be completely unrealistic and irresponsible for a new organization to immediately do so).

In T127312#2048465, @Tgr wrote:

@ori you are assuming that the new organization would own the MediaWiki codebase in some sense, which is not necessary (and even if it would be wanted, it would be completely unrealistic and irresponsible for a new organization to immediately do so).

Any entity describing itself as "MediaWiki Foundation" is going to sow confusion and fragmentation in the user and developer communities. If it isn't promoting itself as the go-to entity for MediaWiki support, development and community, then why is it billing itself the MediaWiki Foundation? And if it is promoting itself as the go-to entity for these things, how is it not splitting the community?

Let's not argue over naming issues for now, but about a potential mission. What I envision is an entity caring for MediaWiki as a software program users can utlilize for their own needs. Definitely, there is a deep relation to "the software that runs Wikipedia", and this connection cannot be severed. And it should not, as MediaWiki draws a lot of it's, say, "street credibility" from being the software that runs Wikipedia. However, who would deny that the software product MediaWiki deserves much more attention than it gets now? The WMF struggles over it's relation to MediaWiki, as it is not clear whether it fits in the mission of spreading free knowledge (I do think so, but I can see no concensus here). A seperate entity could take on the task of making MediaWiki a software product for anyone who cares about sharing knowledge. So actually, if properly shaped, a "MediaWiki Foundation" (or whatever we call it) could not only bring much more clarity, but also finally recognize the fact that MediaWiki is a significat player in the area of social web software.

@ori I think these predictions of doom are in their current form too vague and nonspecific to have a useful discussion about. Forking MediaWiki (or having a Wikia-style de facto fork) is a concrete concern that can be addressed, but how would community fragmentation/split come about? What would it confuse people about? Compare the Wiki Edu Foundation - did that split the community?

(@Qgil sorry if we are getting out of scope here. Feel free to point out a better place for the discussion about how the entity should like. Logically, that discussion needs to precede the kind of proposal this task asks for, though.)

Today a fork is not at the agenda. We had many discussions in the last months and in my opinion it would already helpfull to get an special release for third-party users. Which means:

1. Define the most needed extensions (that's already done and could be complemented by some important extensions for enterprise needs and some extensions from important projects like SMW)
2. Integrate these extensions or make them at least compatible
3. Get proper descriptions at MediaWiki.org
4. Organize a release process
5. Give this release a nice name

For this we need some support and WMF could at least benefit by a better integration of external developers. I can imagine much more. A "MediaWiki Foundation" is not to desintegrate but to integrate people and stakeholders.

I'm not against such an organization, but I don't see why it should be a part of fundamental WMF strategy, budget or annual plan at this point in time.

If some sort of support by WMF is needed (legal?), I'm sure there is some extra space in the budget to lend a helping hand here and there. But I think that without a clear mission statement, a proposed allocation of short term and long term responsibilities and at the very least 2 people to invest a lot of time into this, it simply isn't concrete enough to think of in terms of WMF budget. Anyone interested in truly picking up this work (because that is what it is), and requiring some funding could easily turn to EPG and/or APG grants I think.

In T127312#2049433, @RHeigl wrote:

Today a fork is not at the agenda. We had many discussions in the last months and in my opinion it would already helpfull to get an special release for third-party users.

I assume you're speaking as a member of the MediaWiki Stakeholders Group? Please be careful when using "we" as it be can confusing. :-)

There's currently no consensus for the various related proposals here. @RobLa-WMF has been pushing the "fork MediaWiki" idea on the wikitech-l mailing list (cf. https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2016-January/084570.html) and he has received a similarly cool response there. No sane developer would actively choose to fork a 15-year-old PHP project composed of hundreds of thousands of lines of code, with many parts being quite esoteric. Anyone who would willingly take this project on is too inexperienced and naïve to be effective; anyone who could be effective knows better than to embark on this death march. ("Death march" meaning an endless undertaking with murky and constantly evolving goals and requirements.)

In T127312#2049578, @TheDJ wrote:

I'm not against such an organization, but I don't see why it should be a part of fundamental WMF strategy, budget or annual plan at this point in time.

If some sort of support by WMF is needed (legal?), I'm sure there is some extra space in the budget to lend a helping hand here and there. But I think that without a clear mission statement, a proposed allocation of short term and long term responsibilities and at the very least 2 people to invest a lot of time into this, it simply isn't concrete enough to think of in terms of WMF budget. Anyone interested in truly picking up this work (because that is what it is), and requiring some funding could easily turn to EPG and/or APG grants I think.

Agreed. Well said.

In T127312#2042994, @RobLa-WMF wrote:

@Qgil, are you requesting proposals from prospective MediaWiki Foundation creators?

Yes. In the T119403: Meeting with MW Stakeholders and WMF (meeting notes), I took the action of finding out what is the support of the Wikimedia Foundation toward this initiative. In these conversations it was clear that the WMF will not come up with a plan, because for us it doesn't have enough priority. Therefore if there is a plan, it needs to come from someone else, being the MediaWiki-Stakeholders-Group the most obvious candidates.

In T127312#2048460, @Tgr wrote:

@Qgil since this is for the 2016-17 budget planning, which is already in full swing, I presume there is a time limit. Can you clarify?

I have a soft deadline on T124420: Technical Collaboration narratives and budget for strategic work draft for this Friday 26, and all WMF teams have a hard deadline to share their drafts internally by March 4. If the draft doesn't include an ask by these dates, then surely there will be no ask in the next WMF Annual Plan. If an ask is included, then it can still be challenged, reduced, and cut completely during the multiple reviews this Annual Plan will go between March and June.

In T127312#2048838, @Tgr wrote:

(@Qgil sorry if we are getting out of scope here. Feel free to point out a better place for the discussion about how the entity should like. Logically, that discussion needs to precede the kind of proposal this task asks for, though.)

Someone from the MediaWiki-Stakeholders-Group should point to the place for discussing the plan. After the Summit there was at least one meeting and I remember an etherpad where some notes were taken, but I'm not aware of i.e. a wiki page summarizing a proposal.

In T127312#2049578, @TheDJ wrote:

I'm not against such an organization, but I don't see why it should be a part of fundamental WMF strategy, budget or annual plan at this point in time.

If some sort of support by WMF is needed (legal?), I'm sure there is some extra space in the budget to lend a helping hand here and there. But I think that without a clear mission statement, a proposed allocation of short term and long term responsibilities and at the very least 2 people to invest a lot of time into this, it simply isn't concrete enough to think of in terms of WMF budget. Anyone interested in truly picking up this work (because that is what it is), and requiring some funding could easily turn to EPG and/or APG grants I think.

To be clear, I am not advocating for any specific solution. I'm just trying to help bringing this old discussion somewhere by inviting their promoters to play with the WMF mechanisms. So far the topic seems not to be relevant in the context of the WMF strategy consultation. Let's see if something happens in the context of the Annual Plan. Otherwise, there are still more chances to request grants to the WMF, yes.

Silence probably means that this initiative is not ready for this call now. Or perhaps this is not the right call in the first place, and if this initiative seeks support from the WMF, it should be requested through a specific grant.

Do you agree with this analysis?

@Qgil correct (at least for MediaWiki-Stakeholders-Group). We discussed this and came to the conclusion that we are not ready to produce any substantial numbers yet. Going through a grant later on seems to be a more realistic option.