[Lazare]

I think this is basically just an argument about terms.

If you write code, you're a developer. If you run servers, your in ops. If you are doing both, it's devops. So when discussing the idea of having a total separate team for running the servers, OP says it's not devops and he's right, because the definition of devops is not having the teams be separate. And you say that it's often totally needed to have that separation and you're also right.

> I guess it's possible to turn your entire dev team into part-time DevOps engineers,

I think you mean, it's possible to turn your entire dev team into part-time ops engineers. Which is 1) the entire concept of "devops", and 2) often a horrible idea. :)

(Sorry, but people who use "devops" to mean "ops" is a pet peeve of mine. If you're not a developer, it's just ops.)

[TheCoelacanth]

Most devops teams that I see don't manage the servers. They provide tooling that makes it easier for dev teams to manage their own servers.

If a devops teams is actually managing all the servers, I agree that they aren't doing devops, but at a large enough company it makes sense to have a team working just on things that make it easier for the company to do devops.