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

Thanks @sideshowbarker for splitting this issue out from the [down again](https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/6528) notification  thread and for suggesting an alternative which would at least allow the EDs to be served reliably.

Thanks to @plinss for providing the server infrastructure and for clearly documenting here the various services that are provided. We do depend on all of them; a stopgap solution that only serves drafts but means that Bikeshed and Respec no longer autolinks to the current state would be **bad**.

However, a draft server which is frequently down is hampering work:

- I often have to link to the older /TR version of a spec because the drafts are down
-  publication is frequently paused because the linkchecker reports broken links, because the server is down)

> 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.

- the tests widget is now actively misleading (compare the reported zero tests for CSS Color 5 on Shepherd to the 3529 tests on wpt) because new tests, and corrected tests, are not reflected in those results. It seems that updates stopped happening over a year ago.

So we do need to have this conversation, because the comments about a single point of failure are correct and there needs to be a way for multiple people to understand the system and to be able to help fix and maintain it.

> 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).

**Great news.** I hope some of that funding can go to better documentation of what services are provided and how they work. Its unfair to expect @plinss to carry out all the maintenance single-handed on a volunteer basis.

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Received on Friday, 15 July 2022 09:39:32 UTC