Manual:Pywikibot/Overview

The Python MediaWiki Robot Framework (Pywikibot) is a collection of tools made to fit the maintenance need on Wikipedia, but it can also be used on other MediaWiki sites.

There is a compat release that supports older mediawiki software.

There is the core release of the Python Wikipedia Robot Framework, formerly known as the rewrite branch. It features several improvements, such as full API usage and a pythonic package layout.

The table below may assist in choosing between the compat and core release.

Requirements for a bot
To run a bot on your wiki, you will need Shell access to your hosting account. If you don't know whether you have Shell access or not, ask your hosting provider. You will need Python version > 2.5 and less than 3.0 although Python 2.4.3 has also worked for at least one bot script. Preferred version is 2.7.2. or higher. To check whether you have Python installed and its version, just type "python" at the Shell prompt.

License
Here you can view the LICENSE files for core and compat.

Copyright (c) 2004-2013 Pywikibot team Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE. Everything in the 'externals' directory is general released under separate licenses. Some parts may come from Pywikibot team and share the same permissions, but in general they have to be checked for any external package separately.

Other licenses
The script reflinks.py is licensed under the GPL in compat, but has been relicensed to MIT in core, with removal of code where the author has not responded to the call for the code to be relicensed.