On Mon, 2005-03-28 at 17:51 +0200, Lars Aronsson wrote:
It sounds so easy. But would you accept this procedure if it requires that Wikipedia is unavailable or read-only for one hour? for one day? for one week? The conversion time should be a design requirement. ... Not converting the database is the fastest way to cut conversion time. Perhaps you can live with the legacy format? Consider it.
A properly written export shouldn't need to have exclusive access to the database at all. The only thing that would need that is a complete reinstall and import, which is only one application of the format and should be needed very rarely (switching to a wholly new hardware or software base, for example). In those few cases (maybe once every few years or so), Wikipedia being uneditable for a few days would not be such a terrible thing--better than it being down completely because the servers are overwhelmed.