Re: [csswg-drafts] Replace the https://drafts.csswg.org/ backend (#7500)

A few relevant points:

1. In addition to serving drafts.csswg.org the same application also serves drafts.fxtf.org and drafts.css-houdini.org
2. It also serves the Shepherd spec anchor/link database and spec related parser (used by Bikeshed and Respec), which is auto-updated on each draft commit.
3. It also serves api.csswg.org/bikeshed and keeps its copy of the spec anchor/link database up to date on each draft commit.
4. In addition to generating individual drafts when they are committed, it regenerates all other drafts when the anchor/link database gets updated to keep all the cross references up to date.
5. In addition to serving all the current versions of the drafts, it keeps all the historical versions and can serve the generated specs at any point in their history via a dated URL (and exposes the history in the UI from the home page).
6. In addition the server handles the CSS Test Harness which is still used to generate CR exit criteria and keeps the test suites built and the test harness synced with the spec anchor database. 
7. The funding to update the server has already been approved by a sponsor and we're just waiting for final paperwork before the work begins (hopefully within the next few weeks).
8. All the source for the server is open, and always has been. Anyone could have stepped in to help at any point, this hasn't happened since 2014 when the draft server first went online. If you think starting something new will get more people involved, I'd like to see some evidence. 
9. There have already been discussions within the CSSWG to replace this infrastructure. No one has stepped up to do it and no concrete plans have emerged.

So if you want to start yet another discussion to rebuild all this all over from scratch, a few weeks before this all gets sorted, from plans that have been in motion for a long time, have at it. Personally, I don't think having this conversation yet again is helpful.

Any replacement will also require a commitment from whoever builds it to keep hosting it and to maintain it going forward (I also have been maintaining the server infrastructure).

I'm also curious how much effort you think replacing all this will be vs fixing what's already there and who you expect to do the work.


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Received on Friday, 15 July 2022 03:33:33 UTC