README

   1 2004-08-12
   2
   3 MediaWiki
   4 ---------
   5
   6 MediaWiki is the software used for Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org) and the
   7 other Wikimedia Foundation websites. Compared to other wikis, it has an
   8 excellent range of features and support for high-traffic websites (Wikipedia
   9 peaks at 380 requests per second as of August 2004). However, it is generally
  10 harder to install. Be sure to follow the INSTALL document closely.
  11
  12 Installation on a Microsoft Windows system is not recommended, however it is
  13 possible. Documentation for installation on Windows may be found at:
  14
  15   http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/Running_MediaWiki_on_Windows
  16
  17
  18 The MediaWiki software was written by:
  19  * Lee Daniel Crocker
  20  * Magnus Manske
  21  * Jan Hidders
  22  * Brion Vibber
  23  * Axel Boldt
  24  * Geoffrey T. Dairiki
  25  * Tomasz Wegrzanowski
  26  * Erik Moeller
  27  * Tim Starling
  28  * Gabriel Wicke
  29  * Ashar Voultoiz
  30  * Evan Prodromou
  31  * Several others
  32
  33 These developers hold the copyright to this work, and it is licensed under the
  34 terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2 (see
  35 http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl.html). Derivative works and later versions of
  36 the code will also be considered free software licensed under the same terms.
  37
  38 The newly-founded Wikimedia Foundation currently has no legal rights to the
  39 software, although copyright may be assigned to it at a later date. Wikimedia
  40 has not funded any of the development work.
  41
  42 Sections of code written exclusively by Lee Crocker or Erik Moeller are also
  43 released into the public domain, which does not impair the obligations of users
  44 under the GPL for use of the whole code or other sections thereof.
  45
  46 Many thanks to the Wikipedia regulars for testing and suggestions.
  47
  48 The code is currently maintained at Sourceforge under the project "wikipedia",
  49 module name "phase3". You can view the code in CVS there:
  50
  51   http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net
  52
  53 Please report bugs and make feature requests in our BugZilla system:
  54
  55   http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org
  56
  57 Documentation and discussion on new features may be found at:
  58
  59   http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_User%27s_Guide
  60   http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_development
  61
  62 Documentation about the E-Mail notification can be found on:
  63
  64   http://meta.wikipedia.org/Enotif
  65
  66 If you are setting up your own wiki based on this software, it is highly
  67 recommended that you subscribe to mediawiki-l:
  68
  69   http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
  70
  71 The mailing list is very low volume, and is intended primarily for
  72 announcements of new versions, bug fixes, and security issues.
  73
  74
  75 PHP
  76
  77 The code is written in PHP. Version 4.3.2 or higher is recommended. There are
  78 known issues with early 4.2.x releases. Also, the Monobook skin currently does
  79 not work under the new PHP 5 (but you can use one of the older skins).
  80
  81 MySQL
  82
  83 MediaWiki requires MySQL 3.23 or later, and PHP-MySQL. Version 4.0 or later is
  84 strongly recommended.
  85
  86 Operating system
  87
  88 The code was written on and for Linux, and no attempt has been made to make it
  89 portable to other OSs. The math support in particular has run-time dependencies
  90 on things like TeTeX and GhostScript that are generally found in Linux but not
  91 other OSs. However, we have had reports of successful installation on Windows,
  92 albeit without TeX support.