The MediaWiki Collaborative Editing Software [LWN.net]

MediaWiki is a web wiki package that is being developed by the Wikimedia Foundation.

MediaWiki is the collaborative editing software that runs Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, and other projects. It's designed to handle a large number of users and pages without imposing too rigid a structure or workflow.

[MediaWiki] The code is based on PHP; it has been released under version 2 of the GNU General Public License. MediaWiki is derived from the older Wikipedia project, the project history gives the details. The future development plans for MediaWiki are spelled out in the project roadmap page.

Numerous web sites use MediaWiki including Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, and Wikiquote, a quote archive. For some amusement, search for Linus Torvalds on Wikiquote.

MediaWiki has a rather lengthy Feature List, some of the highlights include:

A web-based user interface.
Optional MySQL database support.
A multi-level permission system.
Caching functionality.
Article cross-linking capabilities.
Support for article revisions.
Multi-lingual support.
Multimedia extensions.
Support for RSS syndication.
Search and query support.
Support for user-edited and user-uploaded data.
Support for LaTeX mathematical functions.
Generation of printable articles.
Talk pages for user messaging.
Watch list support for tracking changes.

Two new versions of MediaWiki were released this week. version 1.3.0 came out with this note: "After an annoyingly long series of beta releases, say hello to MediaWiki 1.3.0! Everyone running the beta releases is _strongly_ recommended to upgrade to the current code." An important security fix was included in this release.

Version 1.3.1 was also announced with this note: "1.3.1 fixes some remaining issues from 1.3.0."

The Wikipedia site speaks volumes about the usefulness and maturity the software, visitors may even be inspired to contribute some content.

(Log in to post comments)