GetWiki

GetWiki .net is an interactive PHP/MySQL application for Wiki websites such as Wikinfo. A highly modified, and controversial, version of the MediaWiki 1.1.0 software running Wikipedia and other sites, GetWiki introduces XML import of individual articles from any other Wiki-site offering GetWiki/MediaWiki XML export. GetWiki also uses XHTML and CSS document and accessibility standards, comprehensive security measures, and interfacing unbiased toward Wikipedia.

GetWiki was forked from MediaWiki in January, 2004 by M.R.M. Parrott, partially under a Creative Commons License for the images and some of the code. The intention was to simply add the XML import feature to MediaWiki for use on the then Internet-Encyclopedia, but the resulting application became a fork through numerous customizations for the new Wikinfo. Such customizations and changes, code cleanup, and dozens of bugfixes of the MediaWiki version forked, have produced an independent, secure wiki application. The current stable release of Getwiki is 1.0.

GetWiki is essentially an improved MediaWiki that lets anyone be an interactive GFDL corpus access provider, specializing only those pages in the GFDL corpus they have a need to import and modify. It is the closest thing available to Project Xanadu, the original Ted Nelson view of how the world wide web should evolve.

The Wikipedia sysop power structure and Wikimedia, which require all GPL software, forbid anyone to copy the key features of GetWiki into MediaWiki, since this would reduce their power to enforce "rules" they make up. Since Wikipedia violates GFDL it is common to see GFDL corpus access providers start up as mirrors without interactive features. This helps Wikimedia retain monopolistic control on editorial control of the latest/live version of most pages in the GFDL corpus. This control further retards the corpus itself and is entirely contrary to the principles of Open Content and Share Alike.

GetWiki is licensed under the GPL, but portions are CC-by-nc-sa and so the application is Share Alike and Non-Commercial, requiring attribution. Therefore, GetWiki is Open Content, Free and Open Source collaboration software, only restricting some code for commercial uses. Future versions will have a higher ratio of CCL code.

References

• Adapted from the GetMeta article, "GetWiki" http://www.getwiki.net/wiki.php?title=GetWiki, used under the GNU Free Documentation License