Extension talk:Math

"Mathoid as a service" is the recommended approach for the Math extension, and the default one.

Inasmuch as "Mediawiki" is offered as free/open source software (FOSS) presumably for open use, I would strongly prefer to avoid any gratuitous dependencies on third party services to display my content.

IF mediawiki is the same software that Wikipedia, Wiktionary and related projects use, that is fine, but the spirit of open source is violated if the display of math equations or other critical content is "going proprietary."

Any users of the software outside the Wikimedia Foundation itself are obviously going to use it for original research and other commercial and personal interest content on private or semi-private wiki installations.

People who are interested in anyone-can-edit general purpose wiki content are obviously going to be contributing that content directly in accordance with that philosphy to the sites hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation for the most part.

Basic settings to lock things down and avoid dependencies on extraneous services are absolutely critical for corporate, business, private and other non-profit or third-party users of free and open source software.

IF the software is being taken "in house" and no longer updated and made available on a free and open source basis, then obviously I will have to look for alternatives. Justina Colmena ~biz (talk) 12:54, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

• As it notes in a conspicuous red box just a little above that old section: "Warning: Mathoid is no longer actively developed in favor of Native MathML mode. It will eventually be discontinued." --Clump (talk) 13:09, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

  IF "Native MathML mode" works universally, then there is no need for SaaS or software as a service in the future, long term. Justina Colmena ~biz (talk) 13:24, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

  $wgDefaultUserOptions['math'] = 'mathml'; gives me "native mathml only" and $wgDefaultUserOptions['math'] = 'native'; gives me "no rendering" Justina Colmena ~biz (talk) 14:04, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

  It looks like a big fragile cumbersome and ultimately broken system to me, which started with an unrealistic goal of displaying any all \LaTeX math equations without actually running \LaTeX. My website is broken because it has to connect to "restbase". I don't want or need spoken versions of math equations online. That's what the text I write with the equations is supposed to be. Plain text or written explanations in plain language, which is convertible to speech at blind people's own convenience and choice just like all other content on the internet. I'm just looking at Mathjax docs for reference, and I don't see anything better than that there either. There's a gang of math bosses and government and university jerks who want universal proprietary software enforced for all mathematical equations. It's an intellectual property thing at a really dumb textbook-thieving locker-room-jock level. People who use math equations are considered intelligent or intellectual and the government has to keep intellectuals under surveillance and control at all times with forced dependencies on third party services among other matters. ∫_-∞^∞ e^-x2/2dx=√π Justina Colmena ~biz (talk) 19:05, 15 January 2025 (UTC)

@Justina Colmena ~biz: All the relevant software is of course open source. Given that your browser doesn't apparently support native MathML, use of some software (locally installed as a service or used over the Internet) seems required? Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 14:10, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Native MathML it works with a browser extension in Chrome but it is missing support for \mathfrak and \mathbb among other goodies. I would install it locally if practical. Nodejs with its own subdomain.

https://gitlab.wikimedia.org/repos/mediawiki/services/mathoid

Not that it doesn't work. Just that I'm just a little uncomfortable hot-linking all the math equations on my website to the MediaWiki server. Justina Colmena ~biz (talk) 14:21, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

@Justina Colmena ~biz: Understood, but many others found running a local service beyond their capacity, especially in limited hosting environments. Certainly we hope that browser vendors upgrade their code so that the need for this goes away entirely. Jdforrester (WMF) (talk) 14:26, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

Browser vendors are not mathematicians. Do not expect textbook quality math equations from browser vendors updating their code anytime soon. Justina Colmena ~biz (talk) 14:43, 14 January 2025 (UTC)