Developers

MediaWiki/Wikimedia developers are people who write MediaWiki software and/or do systems administration work on the Wikimedia servers. Some developers have shell access, which means that they can change the live copy of MediaWiki, change article histories, read server logs, etc. Those with server access can also carry out various non-development tasks.

The Wikimedia Foundation legally controls the servers, so the Board of Trustees are ultimately responsible for determining who has developer access. However, they generally delegate this responsibility. On a day-to-day basis, various developers with root access manage the server accounts.

There is a rough hierarchy among developers. Initially, people contribute patches to, discuss issues on the wikitech-l mailing list or participate in discussion there or on IRC. People who are considered trustworthy and wish to contribute code on a regular basis are given access to the code in Subversion. Developers who are particularly well trusted or have a special need may be granted shell access to the server cluster. And several people who are judged to have the appropriate level of skill and trustworthiness are given root access on the servers. Most of the active developers are on the developer committee. See also how to become a MediaWiki hacker.

For the webshop there is a separate user group for shell access and database. All those with root access have access to a remote power switch, to which several of the servers are connected.

More detailed information about the developers involved in hardware administration and software development may be found at developer activity.

Note: the following list is likely to be very out-of-date.

History
Developers formerly had an important role in the Wikipedia power structure, since they were the only ones able to create sysops or ban users.

Some developers had shell access to the California servers, but due to inactivity, weren't given shell access on the "new" Florida servers. Magnus Manske, Nick Reinking, Lee Daniel Crocker, Axel Boldt, Matthias Jordan, Neil Harris and Ed Poor are in this category. Note that Ed Poor was not involved with software development, but instead carried out what are now bureaucratic or sysop tasks, such as promoting sysops and locking accounts. Past MediaWiki software development activity level of developers may be found through CVS statistics.

The following users had CVS access on Sourceforge. Since April 2006, Subversion has been used instead. Angela Beesley (expired shell), E23 (snok) (expired shell), Tomasz Wegrzanowski (expired shell and root), Guillaume Blanchard, Axel Boldt, Rowan Collins, T.D. Corell, Lee Daniel Crocker, The Cunctator, Johan Dahlin, Peter Danenberg, Michael Dill, Andrew Dunbar, Emmanuel Engelhart, Andre Engels, Fantasy, Tom Gilder, Jan Hidders, Anders Wegge Jakobsen, Matthias Jordan, Shane King, Thomas R. Koll, Niklas Laxström, Christian List, Wil Mahan, Magnus Manske (CVS admin), Zoran Obradovic, Julian Ostrow, Nicholas Pisarro, Jr., Evan Prodromou, Nick Reinking, Derek Ross, Valerio Santinelli, Chris Seaton, Alexander 'Ajvol' Sigachov, Chuck SMITH, Bogdan Stancescu, Marian Steinbach, Tarquin, Timwi (MediaZilla admin), Anders T&ouml;rlind, Zhengzhu, and Rob Church.

External link

 * MediaWiki developer map

Other languages: ja:Wikipedia:&