Events/FOSDEM/2013 - DevRoom - Qgil

Proposal submitted.--Qgil (talk) 19:09, 17 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

About the speaker:

Name: Quim Gil.
Affiliation: http://wikimediafoundation.org/
Short bio:

I help bringing technical contributors to the MediaWiki community and the Wikimedia movement. A journalist in a Catalan newspaper a log time ago, the Internet, hypertext and online collaboration changed my life forever. From online journalism I moved to web development, and from there to Linux and free software in CMSs and mobile, as a mix of developer relations and community manager. My main motivations are software freedom, freedom freedom and the ingredients of social happiness. Currently living in Mountain View (CA, USA) with my trans-European family. (CV)

About the proposed session:

Title: MediaWiki project: Wikipedia's engine room
Preferred duration: 30 minutes.
Time slot (optional): fully flexible.
Abstract (no more than 300 words):

MediaWiki.org is the open source community behind the scenes of Wikipedia, other Wikimedia projects (Commons, Wiktionary, mobile apps...) and the MediaWiki CMS used by hundreds of organizations. While Wikipedia is a top global website with strong ties to openness and freedom, not many identify it as an open source software project. Yet the MediaWiki community has about 500 active contributors (close to 100 fully employed) and maintains more than 5 million lines of code spread in hundreds of specific projects.

Many Wikipedia readers know that it is a free project that exists thanks to the contributions of content and money done by the people. What is less known is that the technical backstage of Wikipedia, the MediaWiki community, is also open to contributors with different specialties and levels of expertise. Software developers can get involved bugfixing and extending server-side and mobile applications, but there is a lot more: testing, design, system administration, documentation, product management, promotion & outreach...

In this session we will share the current radiography of the MediaWiki community, the role of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation, the involvement in technology trends like mobile or big data, the teams and tasks pushing releases and activities on a regular basis. We will also explain what is the strategy of the Wikimedia movement as an open source software open to technical contributions just as it is open to community editing and community funding.

And no worries: we won't miss the chance to let you know how you can get involved here and now. :)