[Labs-l] open grid on bots

[Marc A. Pelletier]

On 03/12/2013 04:33 AM, Petr Bena wrote:
> probably because people in wmf don't believe that anything
> operated by volunteers can ever work

Woah, woah, woah!

Where did you get that?  I'm pretty sure absolutely nobody said that at 
any time; and that it would sound /really/ silly from the foundation 
that stands behind - you know - just the biggest volunteer-operated 
project on the web, ever?  (If not of human history).

What *I* believe in (and I expect WMF Engineering shares) is that the 
labs need at least one sysadmin whose full-time job and /responsibility/ 
is dedicated to making a rock-solid environment for the development and 
deployment of external tools in support of our projects.  It's not about 
being "the WMF", but about being able to dedicate expertise, resources 
and /time/ towards that objective (which being contracted for allows).

I think you are mistakenly conflating /ad-hoc/ system administration - 
which is often apropriate in experimental and exploratory development - 
with /volunteer/ system administration.  Yes, I am working on a design 
which will require a more deliberate approach to the architecture and 
deployment and where tool maintainers will not generally be allowed to 
do system administration.  That has nothing to do with my being *staff*, 
and everything to do with the set of design requirements I am working 
towards.  If I was able to do this as a volunteer, I would /still/ do it 
the same way, because that is what is needed to reach the objectives.

-- Marc