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  * Several others
  30
  31 These developers hold the copyright to this work, and it is licensed under the
  32 terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2 (see
  33 http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl.html). Derivative works and later versions of
  34 the code will also be considered free software licensed under the same terms.
  35
  36 The newly-founded Wikimedia Foundation currently has no legal rights to the
  37 software, although copyright may be assigned to it at a later date. Wikimedia
  38 has not funded any of the development work.
  39
  40 Sections of code written exclusively by Lee Crocker or Erik Moeller are also
  41 released into the public domain, which does not impair the obligations of users
  42 under the GPL for use of the whole code or other sections thereof.
  43
  44 Many thanks to the Wikipedia regulars for testing and suggestions.
  45
  46 The code is currently maintained at Sourceforge under the project "wikipedia",
  47 module name "phase3". You can view the code in CVS there:
  48
  49   http://wikipedia.sourceforge.net
  50
  51 Please report bugs and make feature requests in our BugZilla system:
  52
  53   http://bugzilla.wikipedia.org
  54
  55 Documentation and discussion on new features may be found at:
  56
  57   http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_User%27s_Guide
  58   http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki_development
  59
  60 If you are setting up your own wiki based on this software, it is highly
  61 recommended that you subscribe to mediawiki-l:
  62
  63   http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
  64
  65 The mailing list is very low volume, and is intended primarily for
  66 announcements of new versions, bug fixes, and security issues.
  67
  68
  69 PHP
  70
  71 The code is written in PHP. Version 4.3.2 or higher is recommended. There are
  72 known issues with early 4.2.x releases. Also, the Monobook skin currently does
  73 not work under the new PHP 5 (but you can use one of the older skins).
  74
  75 MySQL
  76
  77 MediaWiki requires MySQL 3.23 or later, and PHP-MySQL. Version 4.0 or later is
  78 strongly recommended.
  79
  80 Operating system
  81
  82 The code was written on and for Linux, and no attempt has been made to make it
  83 portable to other OSs. The math support in particular has run-time dependencies
  84 on things like TeTeX and GhostScript that are generally found in Linux but not
  85 other OSs. However, we have had reports of successful installation on Windows,
  86 albeit without TeX support.