Submissions/apt install mediawiki

This is a Completed submission for Wikimania 2017 ready to be reviewed by a member of the Programme Committee.

Submission no. 3017 Subject - TC

Title of the submission: apt install mediawiki

Type of submission (lecture, panel, tutorial/workshop, roundtable discussion, lightning talk, poster, birds of a feather discussion): Lecture

Author of the submission: Legoktm (aka Kunal Mehta)

Language of presentation: English

E-mail address: legoktmmember.fsf.org

Username: Legoktm

Country of origin: USA

Affiliation, if any (organisation, company etc.): Volunteer / Wikimedia Foundation

Personal homepage or blog: https://blog.legoktm.com/

Abstract (up to 300 words to describe your proposal)

Debian is a purely free software operating system, and MediaWiki is the most popular free software wiki engine. But until recently installing MediaWiki as a Debian package has been a very poor experience.

This reached its lowest point last year, when MediaWiki was removed from Debian due to being an extremely outdated version that no longer received security support. People who had installed MediaWiki from the Debian package were left with no upgrade route, and many still run an outdated version with security vulnerabilities.

At Wikimania 2015, myself, Luke Faraone (Debian FTP master), and Faidon Liambotis (Debian developer) discussed the problem, and I began working on an updated and refreshed version of the MediaWiki package. After a year of work by myself and other MediaWiki developers, an updated version of the package was accepted into Debian, and will be part of the “Stretch” release.

This talk will discuss some of the problems with the previous version of the Debian package, both technical and social, and how we’re trying to address and improve upon them. We’ll also talk about the changes we made inside MediaWiki itself to better support being installed as a Debian package.

Finally, we’ll discuss future plans for the MediaWiki Debian package, and how other MediaWiki developers can get involved.

What will attendees take away from this session?

Attendees will learn a basic explanation how Debian packaging works, how MediaWiki is distributed through Debian, and then how they can become involved and help with the distribution of MediaWiki through Debian.

Theme of presentation: Technology, Interface & Infrastructure

Length of session (if other than 25 minutes, specify how long): 25 minutes

Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?: Most likely

Slides or further information (optional): Slides will be published after the talk

Special requests: None

Is this Submission a Draft or Final?

This is a Completed submission for Wikimania 2017 ready to be reviewed by a member of the Programme Committee.

Interested attendees

If you are interested in attending this session, please sign with your username below. This will help reviewers to decide which sessions are of high interest. Sign with a hash and four tildes. (# ~~~~).

Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 20:27, 5 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Remotely I guess. --Nemo bis (talk) 10:31, 6 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
ערן (talk) 21:33, 8 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
GastelEtzwane (talk) 23:20, 9 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
BDavis (WMF) (talk) 19:07, 10 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Greg (WMF) (talk) 23:03, 13 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
— regards, Revi 00:27, 14 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
KartikMistry (talk) 11:46, 14 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Lluis tgn (talk) 12:32, 15 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
GDubuc (WMF) (talk) 20:04, 1 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]