On 01/16/2015 01:49 AM, Stas Malyshev wrote:
I think we're trying to fulfill a bit of a
contradictory requirement
here - running on the same software both the site of the size of
*.wikipedia.org and a 1-visit-a-week-maybe $2/month shared hosting
install. I think it would be increasingly hard to be committed to both
equally.
This has always been my question independent of the specific choices
made or being made to address this. So, some answers could be:
* Yes, it is possible and for that we need to continue with a monolithic
install, and if VisualEditor/Flow, etc. is needed, then things like
Parsoid would have to become part of core so continue to support WMF's
product offerings.
* It is difficult to support installs equally well at the extremities of
scaling / performance requirements, and for WMF's scale and features
(new ones being developed and conceived on an ongoing basis), we need a
different architecture where there are independent services that can be
developed and maintained independently, but perhaps with packaging
solutions, a large subset of existing wiki installs can be supported and
developed
* It is not really possible to do both and there should be a fork /
split of the mediawiki codebase, and each should go their own way.
Maybe I am setting up strawmen to articulate my point of view, which is
the middle solution, simply because I don't believe that with continuing
demand / development of new features, you can make the same codebase
work for WMF's expanding feature set and for a lot of small wikis who
are content with simple wikitext-based wikis without any of the
additional complexity.
Anyway, independent of the specific outlines above, I think the question
that should inform a discussion would be: is it really possible for the
same codebase to support both WMF's requirements (I say WMF because it
is leading the development of new feaures / products) with new and
evolving products / features as well as the countless small wikis out
there who have exactly one ore two requirements of the wiki?
I am happy to be disabused of the importance of this question.
Subbu.