With MediaWiki 1.23 embedded inside Tuleap, we (Tuleap? FusionForge inherited code?) have hacked mediawiki code to support rename of users. As MediaWiki usernames were bound to Tuleap login and Tuleap login can change... it seemed the right choice.
However, MediaWiki doesn't support renaming of users so it was really a hack. A hack we cannot keep with 1.35 migration.
With MediaWiki 1.35, the strategy is to user Tuleap user id as MediaWiki username (because it cannot change) and to leverage MediaWiki realname to display the correct information.
Howerver, for users that already exists in MediaWiki 1.23 database we need to keep a backward compatibility. The decision is to settle MediaWiki username at migration at their current state.
Example:
- Tuleap user
John Doe (login jdoe)
already has an account in a Tuleap-MediaWiki 1.23 database with MediaWiki username jdoe
- This instance is migrated to 1.35
- MediaWiki 1.35 instance has a user whose username is
jdoe
- Tuleap user is renamed to
John Foo (login jfoo)
, the MediaWiki user will stay at the migrated value: jdoe
This only affects instances and users that have been doing MediaWiki prior to 1.35. All new users (on newly created instances as well as on existing, migrated, instances will have MediaWiki username = Tuleap user id