On 2016-03-21 6:15 PM, James Salsman wrote:
Is there a list of equipment that WMF uses without viable FLOSS alternatives, please?
The switches and routers for one; as far as I know, high-end networking hardware is not available with Libre OSes, nor would the supplier support one flashed with a non-proprietary OS (as one can do with some mid-range gear).
And there is a fuzzy line about being "all-FLOSS". Do you use servers with only open source BIOS and firmware on all attached hardware? At best, that severely crimps your options and I'm not sure there exists viable alternative for /all/ required hardware.
The *important* thing is that anyone can grab Mediawiki, the dumps, and a Libre OS supporting LAMP and make the projects run. Beyond that, best effort to always favour FLOSS when it gets the job done is a solid philosophical stance that is universally applied. But, like most principles, it cannot be a suicide pact. We cannot, as a movement, refuse to get the job done unless we reinvent every proprietary wheel - this way lies both madness and a tremendous waste of donors' money[1].
-- Coren / Marc
[1] For instance, a common thing that is surfaced is to home-spin software when the only FLOSS alternatives require either serious customization or maintenance; we *could* hypothetically hire enough engineers to maintain every bit of needed software - or even write the bits that don't exist - but that's not what we *do* (nor should it be).