I think the vast majority of the people on the Toolserver don't need a
lot of that extra "beefy" stuff. To run our tools, all we need is:
* A database providing replication from the Foundation's databases.
* A web server capable of running PHP, CGI, and other web scripts.
* A linux or solaris machine that we can run bots on.
* A platform on which all of this runs reliably.
If any of us needed a Mediawiki installation, we'd have set up our own
site for it years ago. Sure, I can see you wanting to make options like
that available to developers, particularly those building extensions to
MW, but what the Toolserver community - and really, all of the Wikimedia
projects - need right now is something that meets those four bullet
points. With the Toolserver down as often as it's up lately, and Labs
not ready to provide any of that support until December 2013 (not to
mention no assistance moving there), either a) the Toolserver needs
funding so it can get back to working order, even if it means no further
accounts or projects can be created on it, or b) Labs needs to get that
stuff running much sooner.
And frankly, I don't see why WMDE should be footing the bill for all the
transitioning work when the Foundation isn't providing them any support
to do so while setting up a competing system at the same time.
----
User:Hersfold
hersfoldw...@gmail.com
On 9/25/2012 9:30 PM, Erik Moeller wrote:
On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 2:27 PM, Platonides <platoni...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Platonides.
labs is also a second class citizen.
Moreover, it is explicitely stated not to be for production-like level.
What will happen if a really successful tool reaches to a point where it
de-facto needs it ? (eg. a WLM tool, tools to Request to get an Account
Created, or Request an Unblock appeal...)
Labs doesn't take options away in those cases -- it's just designed to
make it a lot more straightforward to take a tool and integrate it
well, if that's the best path to take for a particular tool.
It opens up additional possibilities:
1) It makes it easy to set up a MediaWiki instance (we're working on a
standard VM config for this to make it really straightforward) so you
can prototype an extension, if that's a direction you want to take for
a particular tool. E.g. some of the above sound like they should be
ideally done as special pages.
I buy into some of the premise stated here (that a lot of tool
developers really don't _want_ to do MediaWiki development), but I
also think it's our job to make it as easy as possible to take
software down the path that makes the most sense. In contrast, large
web apps like MediaWiki are explicitly prohibited from being made
publicly available per https://wiki.toolserver.org/view/Rules
2) It makes it possible to prototype a standalone service, puppetize
it, and prepare it for production deployment on allocated hardware.
For tools that aren't mission-critical and that are only lightly
integrated, I don't view it as an issue for a tool to run at
tools.wmflabs.org/some/cool/tool (or wherever it's going to live)
indefinitely. (Ryan may want to chip in on that.)
So the tool authors are "on their own", while forced to move out.
What is the WMF *offering*?
We're offering free access to very beefy infrastructure for
Wikimedia-relevant purposes. We're in this for the long haul and
intend to develop Labs into the best environment for testing/staging,
bottom-up experimentation and tool development that we can possibly
build.
We're not able to provide hands-on support for porting stuff over, but
as Ryan suggested, it may be feasible for interested folks to build an
environment in Labs that makes transition easier for toolserver users.
The Labs team (which includes volunteers) is generally very responsive
and helpful, within reason.
Would for instance WMF be willing to lend a few servers to the toolserver until
December 2013?
WMDE has to decide what level of transitional support is appropriate
and budget for it. As for support, we've kicked around the possibility
of them purchasing some additional hardware and us buying it from them
later and using it for other purposes, but we'd have to carefully work
out whether that's feasible in practice.
Erik
_______________________________________________
Toolserver-l mailing list (Toolserver-l@lists.wikimedia.org)
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/toolserver-l
Posting guidelines for this list:
https://wiki.toolserver.org/view/Mailing_list_etiquette
