Hello everyone,
I am pleased to share with you the news about the formation of the latest
team in the Technology department, the MediaWiki Platform team![1]
The MediaWiki Platform team will be tasked with leading maintenance and
improvements related to the core MediaWiki platform codebase. That includes
encouraging future development of the MediaWiki platform and addressing the
technical debt that has accumulated during the 15-year history of MediaWiki.
MediaWiki is an amazing, powerful, and complex open-source software
platform. The number and variety of extensions, and the wide variety of
communities who have adopted MediaWiki as their method for knowledge
collection and dissemination, are a testament to its strength as a software
platform.
Like any significant codebase with a long development history, there are
remnants of design choices and experiments that are no longer in use, and
some areas of code are in need of modernization. However, at its core is a
large amount of highly functional, secure, performant code, capable of
supporting a robust platform through the use of extensions and hooks. There
is also a great amount of flexibility to adapt to new requirements.
This team will have a more focused purpose than the previous MediaWiki Core
team.[2]. While the previous team was at times spread too thin, many areas
are now covered by dedicated teams like Security and Performance. The new
MediaWiki Platform team will center their efforts on the core codebase. The
team will also have a dedicated Product Manager who will be creating the
platform roadmap in collaboration with the team, the Architecture Committee
and the MediaWiki user community.
Specific goals for this team are to:
* Assist and encourage development of features for MediaWiki by providing
developers with a strong core.
* Undertake feature development work which is primarily architectural in
nature.
* Facilitate the development and publication of MediaWiki's roadmap to
assist coordination between internal and external users.
* Maintain and promote guidelines and standards for the MediaWiki core.
I am thrilled that Tim Starling has agreed to lead the team, reporting
directly to me. He will be joined by Brion Vibber, Kunal Mehta and Brad
Jorsch. The team officially launches on Monday April 3, and will complete
the hiring and onboarding of additional team members in the coming months.
Their initial workplan will include core support for multi content
revisions for the Structured Data on Commons project and will be discussed
in more detail during the upcoming consultation for the Wikimedia
Foundation 2017-2018 annual plan.
I am excited by this latest evolution in the structure of the Foundation's
Engineering group. We will continue to learn from our collective knowledge
and expertise, and make adjustments to our composition and plans. I
appreciate the input provided by many in the community that helped inform
this decision. I also want to thank the members of the Wikimedia
Foundation's Product, Technology, and Community Engagement departments who
were involved in this process. In particular, I would like to thank Toby
Negrin, Adam Baso, and Trevor Parscal - whose support was critical in
bringing this plan together.
Join me in welcoming and celebrating our new team!
Victoria