On 5/29/21 5:59 PM, Brian Wolff wrote:
It sounds like phabricator upstream is going away:
https://admin.phacility.com/phame/post/view/11/phacility_is_winding_down_op…
<https://admin.phacility.com/phame/post/view/11/phacility_is_winding_down_operations/>
On the general topic, it's worrying to me this is the third major
platform/software that Wikimedia relies on that is gone, with little
notice. OTRS went EOL 2 days before Christmas last year[1] and Freenode
well, switched hands and imploded.
In all 3 cases though it's been pretty clear beforehand that something
was wrong or unsustainable. OTRS didn't release their community edition
on time[2], Freenode has had questionable governance for a while now,
the "Freenode Limited" company was created in 2017, and
Phabricator/Phacility has been maintained by a single person (who's done
great work, no doubt) in a way that did not really encourage upstream
contributions to build a sustainable community of contributors (my
impression, correct me if I'm wrong).
And with COVID-19, plenty of IRL businesses/shops/etc. have gone under
or just closed down so it's unsurprising that we're seeing the effect in
tech/FOSS too.
I think it would be a good idea if we can check in on our upstreams[2],
have sustainable governance, identifying if they assistance/support, and
then figuring out how to provide what's needed.
To start with, I think we have a unique opportunity to influence the
governance of Libera Chat given they're just starting off and appear to
be interested in getting our feedback[3].
[1]
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T275294
[2]
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Upstream_projects
[3]
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Forum#Libera_Chat_governance
-- Legoktm