On Tue, Oct 1, 2013 at 11:43 AM, Brian Wolff <bawolff(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I know this is not your question - but officially
supported by whom? I
would consider this massively out of scope for the wmf unless it was using
revenue from this service to subsidize wikipedia. Even then it seems
somewhat questionable, politically.
Excellent question: I'd say the key "official"ness markers of a
hosting/support organization would be:
* the org has permission to use the MediaWiki name/logo/domains (need
agreement with WMF?)
* MediaWiki documentation endorses the organization doing the
hosting/support (need general consensus with the developers, many but not
all of whom are WMF employees)
I'd expect conditions of such would tend to include:
* the org invests its time, money, and people back into MediaWiki
development
The actual organization could (maybe should?) be distinct from WMF; whether
it could be a wholly-owned subsidiary like Mozilla's "Mozilla Corporation",
or a separate mini-company like our MediaWiki release management team, or
something else is something I feel needs a lot more input.
-- brion