the org has permission to use the MediaWiki name/logo/domains
Name and Logo sure -- but why domains? This shouldn't be an exclusive thing; we should not be moving towards having only one shop offering this service. Maybe the WMF could have some sort of 'partners' program that handled licensing.
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 don't think I can express how much I loathe organizations that do this. Varnish and Adiscon (rsyslog) are two offenders that come to mind. It seems to create an ecosystem where a new user assumes they must use the hosting provider for an install. And/or that any new features the vendor develops can be locked away and never documented except very sketchily in code. I don't mind having a page on mediawiki.org that would say something along the lines of 'if you dont want to host yourself...' but otherwise I feel the documentation / main site should be kept as neutral as possible.
~Matt Walker Wikimedia Foundation Fundraising Technology Team
On Tue, Oct 1, 2013 at 12:03 PM, Brion Vibber bvibber@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Tue, Oct 1, 2013 at 11:43 AM, Brian Wolff bawolff@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 _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l