On 25/09/12 00:51, DaB. wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> in these days WMDE (the chapter that finance the toolserver) is discussing the
> budget for the next year (2013); you can find it at [1]. At the moment there is
> no money for new toolserver-hardware in this budget and the CEO Pavel Richter
> is unwilling to change this ([2] in german) – because he fears that there will
> be a Wikilabs in 2014. It is not possible for me to run the toolserver for
> another year with the current hardware – you all know why. For this reason I
> will request a change of the budget at the general meeting at November, so
> there will be a vote about. If this vote should fail (and we get no money for
> new hardware), I am going to retire from my job as root at 30. December 2012.
> I'm not longer able to tolerant the behavior of the german chapter and the WMF
> in matter of the toolserver; I do this for free and for fun, and it is not
> longer fun.
>
> Sincerely,
> DaB.
So, out of fear that there may be a better alternative in two years
time, he decides to stop supporting it now?
I know labs, and I'm not sure it will really be a better alternative.
Currently, it isn't. The toolserver is much more reliable and flexible.
I don't think labs will "win" in the near future, either. Although it
might change in two years. Specially if no attention is payed to the
toolserver for that time.
I see two big problems:
1) If labs really becomes the "perfect tool hosting" in 2014, What
happens before we reach that? "Yes, your tool doesn't work, migrate to
labs next year"
2) We risk ending up with no good alternative at that time. labs is
still not good enough, toolserver has degraded so much it's unusable.
Not to mention the migration cost that would need to be payed by tool
authors if forced to move. Although perhaps he doesn't care.