On 01/05/13 21:53, DaB. wrote:
Hello all,
until now I had the impression that we (you, the authors, and me) fight together against WMF and WMDE for keeping the Toolserver and against Labs. Some mails and discussion in the last days gives me now the impression that this was wrong and (at least some of) you are eager to leave the toolserver as soon as possible.
It does look at times as if they wanted to remove the toolserver from behind us, but it shouldn't be considered a fight. In this situation, the interest for that new-über-replacement it's completely normal. It doesn't mean that they love one more than the other.
There is no point to beg the WMDE for new hardware and to invest much more time if 2 weeks after Labs is "ready" the toolserver will be empty. For this reason I created a survey at [1] that starts at midnight. Please take a moment of your time and place your nick in the section that suits you.
Sincerely, DaB.
Even if "labs being ready" happens in 2018? "ready" will vary for each tool, but I foresee a process like this:
1. labs provides all the resources needed for $TOOL 2. $AUTHOR signs up in labs, gets added to the projects, etc. 3. $AUTHOR tests (benchmarks) labs and finds it acceptable for $TOOL 4. $AUTHOR learns all the labs-specific details. 5. $AUTHOR allocates some time for installing $TOOL in labs 6. Fix bugs in $TOOL when run in labs (aka. adapt $TOOL to labs) 7. (Optional) Redirect toolserver/$TOOL to labs/$TOOL
For the majority of tools, we haven't reached #1 yet.
Once labs provides (almost) everything available at toolserver, you can start talking about when to stop supporting TS. But doing otherwise is premature. #2 is the only step that could take place before #1.
Then there is the 'lazy factor' for #2-7, although it is also known as "too busy to fix this program which works ok in TS" Some people may skip #3, while others will want to be damn sure that it will work correctly. The time required by #4 can be reduced making labs very similar to toolserver. If labs environment for the programs is very different, such as needing to do the joins manually inside the program, that will increase #6 a lot.