[Wikimedia-l] Dells are backdored

[James Salsman]

When this came up last time, it turned out that there was some kind of
a deal in place, and certainly many if not most published pictures of
the Wikimedia data center feature rows of shiny Dell logos.  But Dell
does support Microsoft and the NSA, obviously, and also supports some
very creative accounting methods to avoid paying taxes with tax
havens. Dell's corporate structure adventures are not the sort of
corporate behavior concordant with a mission to empower anyone other
than Dell stockholders.

If you don't like Cubietrucks, then how about RADXA? At least with
http://dl.radxa.com/rock/docs/hw/RADXA_ROCK_schematic_20130903.pdf
you know exactly what you're getting and it doesn't cost a huge power
bill. We still failover when machines go out of service, and sure the
caches would have different RAM configurations, but the fact is it
doesn't cost more money to switch to ARM, and you jettison a bunch of
legacy x86 crap that nobody uses but take millions of transistors
which need to be powered. Why ask our donors to keep all those useless
transistors warm?

And as much as I personally appreciate Wikimedia staff, I am inclined
to agree with the sentiment that perhaps we should hire more staff
until we get some who believe that it wouldn't cost $100,000 to
transition to less expensive hardware. And maybe some people who know
how to order chassis?

Best regards,
James