[pmwiki-users] Selecting a Wiki engine...

[Ben Wilson]

On 10/2/06, Oliver Betz <list_ob at gmx.net> wrote:
>
> Availability: although I see that Patrick R. Michaud and the very
> active community do a great job improving PmWiki, I would like to
> know whether there are more (potential) "core" developers, IOW
> whether there is a good change that PmWiki will be maintained even if
> PM stopped development some day.

With any software project, there is always the risk "loss of key
personnel." One advantage to OSS is that the owners could toss the
code over the fence, and it is still available to the community. Thus,
OSS mitigates that risk. So, in answering your last question first, if
Pm is abducted by aliens, then PmWiki would likely be maintained.

Pm is the developer for PmWiki, and has been for the past, what, five
years? He's more prolific in his support for PmWiki than a lot of
other OSS I've seen. And, as the only developer there is little
dissent at the development meeting. The code has an uncanny uniformity
in programming styles. The advantage of Pm being the sole developer is
quality software. So, I would put this characteristic in the "benefit"
column.

You mention writing embedded software in C. I'll hazard a guess that
the ability to pick up PHP is within your grasp. :-)

-- 
Ben Wilson