Entries in Life

We really don’t want to encourage people to run their MediaWiki site off of subversion checkouts. Still, if we don’t release often enough, some people will see a tasty feature in HEAD or an extension that only works against the TRUNK and feel compelled to skip the stable releases to use it. In 2010, we only released one version of MediaWiki: 1.16. We’re currently working on the 1.17 release. This involves branching the code, slogging through the code review of the as-yet-unreviewed revisions, and getting all the 1.17 blocker bugs fixed. As our release schedule has slowed, some admins don’t bother to look for upgrades or, the more adventurous ones, run off of HEAD. Both of these are less than ideal and can expose a MediaWiki site to security risks. One of the things I would like to do as Bugmeister is help get MediaWiki back on a regular schedule. We used to have quarterly releases of MediaWiki, so maybe we can shoot for two (or three???) releases this year. I’ve talked to a couple of people and, assuming we can manage to get 1.17 out the door in the next few weeks, it should be possible to get 1.18 out by the middle of the year. Now, don’t think of this as an official announcement, I’m just expressing my personal hopes and goals. And we do need to get 1.17 out soon. But I hope to get 1.18 out the door by July.

After a year working on MediaWiki projects at Wikimedia, I’m filling the position of Wikimedia Bugmeister. I’ve had a lot of fun in the MediaWiki community over the past year and grown to really appreciate the skills of the MediaWiki developers and, in this new role, I hope to work with the the developer community and the users of MediaWiki and Wikipedia to make great things happen. “Make great things happen” sounds kind of cliched, but I really believe that Wikimedia is a nexus of a lot that is happening in Free Culture, so there is great potential in everything that happens here. In my new role as Bugmeister, I’ll have some influence on the tack that Wikimedia takes and the problems that are addressed. I’m excited about the responsibility and have great hopes for what happens next.

Hyperbolic subject, but a couple of Facebook related tidbits. Facebook is dying:

This week’s news that Goldman Sachs has chosen to invest in Facebook while entreating others to do the same should inspire about as much confidence as their investment in mortgage securities did in 2008. For those who weren’t watching, that’s when Goldman got rich betting against the investments it was selling.

And this great Assange quote:

What are the differences between Mark Zuckerberg and me? I give private information on corporations to you for free, and I’m a villain. Zuckerberg gives your private information to corporations for money and he’s Man of the Year.