Hello,
I don't think we need to see Commons as a Service project, All Wikimedia projects need the other projects. Wikimedia is build on all the projects and saying that a project is only a service project can make the people feel bad that are working on that project. I think the view that Rama uses can be seen in a lot of ways, and regarding the point of view that you uses you can make all projects into a service project.
We have now a discussion in a "private" place about how people have to change Commons, isn't it a better idea to make this a discussion on Commons or on Meta (if you want a neutral place). Commons has a great communety with people that are spending all there time on Commons, and whe have photographers that can easely make money with there pictures but chooses to release it under a free license.. I rather see a onwiki discussion so we can hear there say's also..
Just my view here but I cant send the email without a notice about this..
I'm seeing a discussions or even multible discussions about how Commons needs to change to be a better service project. But when Commons needs to change, will we change all other projects also? There are still images getting deleted because we couldn't get the source information or other important information because the file was already deleted local, there is a bug to give Commons adminstrators view permission for deleted files globally, there has been a vote on Meta and still it isn't activated (more than a year waiting time). Things like that will make Commons also a better service project.. Or isn't that important enough?
Huib