Pavel Richter wrote:
> Wikimedia Deutschland is committed to run and maintain the Toolserver as long as
> Wikilabs are not in position to offer the same level of service as the Toolserver. This 
> committment includes the purchase of new hardware, where necessary to keep the 
> servers running. As in the past years, I hope for support by other entities in this project, 
> both financially and with administration of the Toolserver.

@DaB: how much of an annual budget do you think the toolserver requires?  


On Tue, Sep 25, 2012, Delphine Ménard <notafishz@gmail.com> wrote:
we can't at this stage enter in expensive improvements, because Labs is, 
in the short to mid-run, destined to replace the "toolserver as you know it"
completely. It falls under the attributions of the Foundation, as hosting provider 
of the Wikimedia Projects, to provide authors, developers and contributors with the technical tools they need to make their work easier.

Why is this?  The Foundation has always tried to provide some technical tools, but not all; it is not an exclusive job of the Foundation, and the toolserver in particular has often (quite often!) provided support that was not available anywhere else.   It's good that more tools are being developed and maintained.  But in my opinion we need more entities, not fewer, providing this sort of support.  

And Ryan has said elsewhere that Wikimedia Labs is not intended to replace the toolserver.   So why is WM-DE considering dropping the toolserver?   And why is the WMF considering not providing db replication for it?  I thought the goal was to make that easier, not harder.

SJ