[Wikimedia-l] Wikimedia labs-tools

[John]

tools.wmflabs.org is supposed to be the replacement for the toolserver
which the wmf is basically forcefully shutting down. I started the
migration several months ago but got fed up with the difficulties and
stopped. In the last month I have moved most of my tools to labs, and I
have discovered that there are some serious issues that need addressed.

The toolserver was a fairly stable environment. I checked my primary host I
connect to and it has been up for 4 months with continuous operations.

tools however is being treated like the red-headed step child. According to
the people in charge of labs they dont care about ensuring stability and
that if stuff breaks Oh well well get to it when we can. They say that
tools is not a production service so we really don't give a <>, if it
breaks it breaks, we will fix it when we can but since its not production
its not a priority.

One good example of this is that a tool cannot connect to
tools.wmflabs.orgdue to a host configuration issue. This is a known
bug, we have a way of
fixing it, but its still not implemented

Given that tools is replacing the toolserver I would expect at worst labs
is just as good, however what I am seeing and hearing is that the wmf is
throwing away one of their best assets, and driving away a lot of
developers due to the management of tools.

I do want to give Coren credit as he is doing what he can to support the
migration.

My question is why has the wmf decided to degrade the environment where
tool developers design and host tools (quite a few of them are long term
stable projects)? and what can we do to remedy this?

John