0x010c / liverc2 Goto Github PK

GPLv2 is not compatible with CC-BY-SA 3.0, which is the license used on Wikipedia.

(Irrelevant here, but for information: CC-BY-SA 4.0 is one-way compatible with GPLv3, which means CC-BY-SA 4.0-licensed work can be integrated into GPLv3-licensed work, but the opposite is not true.)

I suggest using a liberal license instead, such as MIT, BSD 2 clauses or ISC, which would:

• make it compatible with CC-BY-SA 3.0, hence making sure there's no license hazard when syncing the repo to Wikipedia;
• make it compatible with CC-BY-SA 3.0, allowing reuse of code within other scripts / gadgets ;
• make it compatible with MIT/X11, hence allowing reuse of code within LiveRC 1.x.

In any case:

• it would not allow to reuse code from Huggle (GPLv3, but it's not JS anyway) or other scripts / gadgets (CC-BY-SA 3.0);
• it would allow reuse of code from LiveRC 1.x (MIT/X11).

I understand the benefits of writing a MediaWiki extension when special access is required for the tool to function, but I fail to see which is needed for LiveRC. Do you have any in mind? I believe EventStream and the Action API is all that is needed, and that are public APIs.

I have to confess that I'm not well versed at all in JavaScript packaging for MediaWiki, so I might very well have missed something important, but…

Developing LiveRC as a user script / gadget has an immense benefit, which is to be testable and hackable by pretty much anybody with only very basic JavaScript skills. You copy the code in your common.js, you press F5 and that's it. Setting up a MediaWiki extension is way above the actionability threshold for pretty much anybody apart from MediaWiki developers.

The way I see it (and I'm open to criticism), the new LiveRC is built with modern tooling (git, JS frameworks, possibly even TypeScript), but remains deployable, testable and if needed hackable by anybody. That's something I think is quite easily achievable with a tool like webpack: write code in JavaScript, TypeScript, SASS, you name it, spread it across hundreds of files if it makes it easier to manage, package it to pure JavaScript + CSS using webpack, and then anybody can deploy it as a user script. No need to be a sysop. No need to be an interface administrator. No need to be a developer. No need to be a WMF system administrator.

Local gadgets go through ResourceLoader anyway, so I don't think any approach is more efficient than the other.

Thanks!