Contributors Agreement signature status?

Hi all,

what is the Contributors Agreement signature status of this people (84)?

ab Alexandre Bergel ?
acg Andrew C. Greenberg
AFi Alain Fischer
ajh Anthony Hannan
al Adrian Lienhard
apb Andrew P. Black
ar Andreas Raab
bf Bert Freudenberg
BG Boris Gaertner
bkv Brent Vukmer
bootstrap Pavel Krivanek
BP Bijan Parsia
brp Brent Pinkney
bvs Ben Schroeder
crl Craig Latta
dc Damien Cassou
dew Doug Way
DF Diego Fernandez
dgd Diego Gomez Deck
di Dan Ingalls
djp David J. Pennell
dtl Dave Lewis
dvf Daniel Vainsencher
dwh Dwight Hughes
fbs Frank Shearar ?
fc Frank Caggiano
gk Goran Krampe (nee Hultgren)
go Georg Gollmann
hg Henrik Gedenryd
hh Helge Horch
hmm Hans-Martin Mosner
hpt Hernan Tylim
ikp Ian Piumarta
jm ?
JMM John McIntosh
KLC Ken Causey
kwl Klaus D. Witzel
laza Alexander Lazarevic
LC Leandro Caniglia
lr Lukas Renggli
ls Lex Spoon
md Markus Denker
mdr Mike Rutenberg
mir Michael Rueger
mk Matej Kosik
nb Naala Brewer
nice Nicolas Cellier
nk Ned Konz
Noury Bouraqadi Noury Bouraqadi
NS Nathanael Schaerli
pk Pavel Krivanek
pmm ?
pnm Paul McDonough
RAA Bob Arning
raa Bob Arning ?
RAH Richard A. Harmon
raok Richard A. O'Keefe
rbb Brian Brown
rca Russell Allen
reThink John Sarkela
rhi Robert Hirschfeld
RJ Ranjan Bagchi
rr Romain Robbes
rw Roel Wuyts
rww Robert Withers
sd Stefane Ducasse ?
sma Stefan Matthias Aust
SqR Andres Valloud
sr Stephan Rudlof
stephaneducasse Stefane Ducasse
stp Stephen Travis Pope
sumim Masato Sumi
sw Scott Wallace
TAG Travis Griggs
tak Takashi Yamamiya
tao Tim Olson
tfei The Fourth Estate, Inc.
tk Thomas Kowark
to ?
tpr Tim Rowledge ?
TPR Tim Rowledge
wb Wayne Braun
yo Yoshiki Ohshima
zz Serge Stinckwich

that are the authors of methods that are contained in the smallest
image that is able to load the rest of Squeak.
The complete list of methods is here:
http://comtalk.net/public/pub/KernelImage/authors.csv
We are talking about cca 2500 methods where about 650 methods have no
time stamp. I expect that it means that the authors of this methods
relinquished the authorship so this method are automatically under the
new Squeak license. I think that the set of methods that we will have
to rewrite will be very low.
If we will confirm license change for methods by this authors, we will
have the first image, that can be able to:
- load reset of non-free kernel methods
- load fonts, display text and paragraph support
- load MinimalMorphic system
- load rest of Squeak code
This steps can be done explicitly by user (he for example runs a
script that will download and install the code from internet) so the
basic kernel Squeak image will be freely redistributable. Currently
the basic kernel includes only Linux platform dependent code.
If we will have this image free, we can slowly add the next
license-clean code to the kernel.

Cheers
-- Pavel

On 3 juil. 07, at 12:09, Pavel Krivanek wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> what is the Contributors Agreement signature status of this people  
> (84)?
>
> ab Alexandre Bergel ?

yes


EXCELLENT!

>
> Cheers
> -- Pavel
>
>

Hi Pavel--

> Hi all,
>
> what is the Contributors Agreement signature status of this people
> (84)?

     I suspect you're aware that I'm coordinating that information. :)
As always, it's available at [1] (from which you seem to have copied
your initials/name info, as indicated by the "nee Hultgren" annotation
of mine :).

> bootstrap    Pavel Krivanek

     We have a signed letter on file for you (reflected in [1]). As for
the rest of the 84 people you asked about, all of them have signed
except for:

     Andrew C. Greenberg (acg)
     Alain Fischer (AFi)
     Brent Pinkney (brp)
     Ben Schroeder (bvs)
     David J. Pennell (djp)
     Dwight Hughes (dwh)
     Henrik Gedenryd [deceased] (hg)
     Helge Horch (hh)
     ? (jm)
     Mike Rutenberg (mdr)
     ? (pmm)
     Paul McDonough (pnm)
     Richard A. Harmon (RAH)
     John Sarkela (reThink)
     Ranjan Bagchi (RJ)
     Stefan Matthias Aust (sma)
     Travis Griggs (TAG)
     The Fourth Estate, Inc. (tfei)
     ? (to)
     Wayne Braun (wb)

     As mentioned here previously (complete with ensuing mail storms :),
the board has authorized current and future Squeak release teams to
discard the code of non-signers at their discretion, as of 1 May 2007.
Of course, as a practical matter, this isn't a big deal right now, since
the current release team hasn't discarded anything for this reason yet,
as far as I know.

     The information at [1] includes the Squeak 3.9 objects I use to
store this information. I generated all the textual lists at [1], as
well as the list above, by evaluating expressions with those objects.
Anyone could easily do the same, and I have mentioned all this here
before on multiple occasions. I'm sorry to be repetitive, but it seems
diligent to point this stuff out again. :)

> that are the authors of methods that are contained in the smallest
> image that is able to load the rest of Squeak.

     I'm still puzzled as to why you feel the need to duplicate the
Spoon work (and then use false superlatives to describe the result).
What's going on here?

> We are talking about cca 2500 methods where about 650 methods have no
> time stamp. I expect that it means that the authors of this methods
> relinquished the authorship so this method are automatically under the
> new Squeak license.

     I don't think there's any basis to assume that. Under the Berne
convention, an author need not register a copyright in the countries
that adhere to the convention. This is one reason why we're collecting
explicit agreements. I assure you, if we didn't feel we ought to go
through this, we wouldn't. :)

> I think that the set of methods that we will have to rewrite will be
> very low.

     Yes, and much lower still with Spoon.

     This is roughly the plan for Naiad, Spoon's module system.

     I'm mostly a technocrat: I want to put my effort into the
technology I think is most effective. Do you have a similar mindset? Is
there something about Spoon that you think is lacking? Are we dealing
with technical issues, or political ones, or something else? It's not
clear to me why, apparently, we're working at cross purposes.


     thanks!

-C

[1] http://netjam.org/squeak/contributors

--
Craig Latta
improvisational musical informaticist
www.netjam.org
Smalltalkers do: [:it | All with: Class, (And love: it)]

Hi Craig,

On 7/3/07, Craig Latta <[hidden email]> wrote:
My fault, I haven't expect that the object representation contains
something more than the lists :-)

> > that are the authors of methods that are contained in the smallest
> > image that is able to load the rest of Squeak.
>
>      I'm still puzzled as to why you feel the need to duplicate the
> Spoon work (and then use false superlatives to describe the result).
> What's going on here?

To be more accurate, the smallest image with the 3.10 code base that
can load the rest of Squeak 3.10.

ok

> > I think that the set of methods that we will have to rewrite will be
> > very low.
>
>      Yes, and much lower still with Spoon.

right

If we would have free Spoon now, nothing important would change
because Spoon is too different from current systems - from this point
of view it's similar to the current free Squeak 1.1. Spoon is a fork
with own VM, module system, major changes in the system architecture.
I don't think that there are some political issues. I simply want/need
modular free image that can run in context of current Squeak
applications and tools and I want it as soon as possible.

Can you tell me where do you see problematic aspects of my work?

-- Pavel

Pavel Krivanek wrote:

> On 7/3/07, Craig Latta <[hidden email]> wrote:

Looking from a distance I strongly agree with Pavel here. Spoon is
revolutionary but yet unproven concept while Pavel is doing evolutionary
work on an existing image. One can be more confident that such approach
will lead to a better and reliable image sooner than a more
revolutionary one. But Spoon can be much better later.

I think that both should be developed in parallel. Pavel work with a lot
of small steps on existing image and Craig work on Spoon as a complete
new paradigm. When Spoon will be ready and proven on few battlefields,
then will be a time for a switch.

I hope you won't mind those few thoughts from a young Squeaker but old
Smalltalker ...

Best regards
Janko

--
Janko Mivšek
AIDA/Web
Smalltalk Web Application Server
http://www.aidaweb.si

Hi Janko--

> When Spoon will be ready and proven on few battlefields, then will be
> a time for a switch.

     Can you be more specific? I'd like to know how you (all) define
success, in terms concrete enough for planning. I suspect "I'll know it
when I see it" doesn't suffice. :)


     thanks,

-C

--
Craig Latta
improvisational musical informaticist
www.netjam.org
Smalltalkers do: [:it | All with: Class, (And love: it)]

Craig Latta wrote:
>> When Spoon will be ready and proven on few battlefields, then will be
>> a time for a switch.
>
>      Can you be more specific? I'd like to know how you (all) define
> success, in terms concrete enough for planning. I suspect "I'll know it
> when I see it" doesn't suffice. :)

Have someone other than you use it for a decently sized project, come
back and say: Yes, it works. And (hopefully) also: And it works great.
As far as I know Spoon hasn't been used outside the context it was
originally conceived in so it is hard to say how it'll hold up when
other people try to use it for their own purposes. Plus, independent
opinions are always helpful in explaining and understanding what a
particular bit of technology is helpful with.

Cheers,
   - Andreas

> To: [hidden email]
> From: [hidden email]
> Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 13:36:30 -0700
> Subject: re: Contributors Agreement signature status?
>
> I'm mostly a technocrat: I want to put my effort into the
> technology I think is most effective. Do you have a similar mindset? Is
> there something about Spoon that you think is lacking? Are we dealing
> with technical issues, or political ones, or something else? It's not
> clear to me why, apparently, we're working at cross purposes.

Just as an observer from the side, isn't it the case that Pavel is trying the make the smallest possible code base *with current Squeak* while you are making lots of modifications to how the environment itself works?  And if that's the case, would they still be cross purposes?  I would see it more as "low hanging fruit" (so to speak) vs. "the whole shabang", no?

---

Don't get caught with egg on your face.    Play Chicktionary! 

Hi Andreas--

> Have someone other than you use it...

     Ah, and how do I get them to do that? :)  That sounds like a
restatement of the original problem.

> ...for a decently sized project...

     I'd appreciate it if you (or anyone) were to define what
"decently-sized" means, perhaps by giving examples of other successful
decently-sized projects.

> As far as I know Spoon hasn't been used outside the context it was
> originally conceived in so it is hard to say how it'll hold up when
> other people try to use it for their own purposes. Plus, independent
> opinions are always helpful in explaining and understanding what a
> particular bit of technology is helpful with.

     Quite right.


     thanks,

-C

--
Craig Latta
improvisational musical informaticist
www.netjam.org
Smalltalkers do: [:it | All with: Class, (And love: it)]

On 7/5/07, Craig Latta <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> Hi Andreas--
>
> > Have someone other than you use it...
>
>      Ah, and how do I get them to do that? :)  That sounds like a
> restatement of the original problem.

No, it's not.  The original problem was "how do we know when Spoon has
succeeded?".  The answer: "Get someone else to use it.".  Your new
question is thus equivalent to "How do I get Spoon to succeed?".  A
reasonable question, but that one's ultimately up to you to answer,
I'm afraid.

Unless there's some original original problem that I missed :)

Avi

Hi JJ--

     (Is it just me, or do all your messages come through without
newlines, even in the quoted material?)

> Just as an observer from the side...

     What's holding you back?

> ...isn't it the case that Pavel is trying the make the smallest
> possible code base *with current Squeak* while you are making lots of
> modifications to how the environment itself works?

     That's one way to put it, I suppose. However, I suspect there isn't
an easy definition of what "current Squeak" is after you've done
anything to it, unless your goal is to end up exactly where you started.
Do we really want to end up where we started?

> And if that's the case, would they still be cross purposes?  I would
> see it more as "low hanging fruit" (so to speak) vs. "the whole
> shabang", no?

     No, that's not how I see it. There's more involved in the value of
that fruit than the mere fact it hangs low. :)  I think the amount of
duplicated work, for results that aren't as useful, makes it something
not worth doing that way (mostly because we are strapped for time and
other resources). Having a short-term-gain mindset at all times will
cause the total effort to be much harder and take much longer. I'm sorry
if this sounds harsh (it sounds harsh to me, you don't need to convince
me of that :). Despite that, I think it's still best to speak plainly here.


     thanks,

-C

On 7/5/07, Craig Latta <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Having a short-term-gain mindset at all times will
> cause the total effort to be much harder and take much longer. I'm sorry
> if this sounds harsh (it sounds harsh to me, you don't need to convince
> me of that :). Despite that, I think it's still best to speak plainly here.

I'll speak plainly back, then.  You asked in a recent message how to
get someone else to use Spoon.  The only true answer I can give is,
offer them a short term gain.  Yes, short term incremental improvement
causes the total effort to be greater, but it also mitigates adoption
risk: at each incremental stage you can assess whether or not people
are actually going to use the work you're doing or not, and modify
what you're doing accordingly.  It's great to go off on a long-term
research project and come back with something beautiful, but there is
a significant risk that it will turn out not to be what people
actually want, and get no adoption.  Having an incremental process in
the meantime is valuable, both as a backup in case the long-term
project fails, but also to inform the long term project about what the
community finds useful and what falls flat.

In Vancouver, where I live, there is currently a massive multi-year
project going on to extend a subway line from downtown out to the
airport.  In 2010, when it's complete, it'll be great.  For now, it's
a massive disruption.

I can live with the disruption.  Here's what I wouldn't be able to
live with: when I'm standing on the street corner hailing a cab to
take me to the airport, one of the subway engineers comes over and
tells me off.  "All you have to do is grab a shovel and help out and
we'll get you to the airport in style - *so* much better than a taxi,
and less total effort in the long run."  That's nice, buddy, but I've
got a plane to catch.

Avi

Craig Latta wrote:
>> Have someone other than you use it...
>
>      Ah, and how do I get them to do that? :)  That sounds like a
> restatement of the original problem.

No, not really. After all you are positing that this is technology that
will benefit many people, right? If this is so, there should be someone
who says that this technology is such a clear win that they're willing
to give it a shot. So what I'm saying is that one measure of success is
whether there is actually someone who says "yes, this looks so clearly
beneficial to my problem that I'm willing to be the first to try it".
Every technology has that problem, and every successful technology has
(by definition) overcome it.

>> ...for a decently sized project...
>
>      I'd appreciate it if you (or anyone) were to define what
> "decently-sized" means, perhaps by giving examples of other successful
> decently-sized projects.

This is a harder question to answer (which is also why I phrased it more
vaguely ;-) What I mean by "decently" is that the problem being solved
is a real problem, not a made-up example that only highlights the
particular advantages of the technology and doesn't solve any real problem.

For example, I consider the collection refactoring using traits a
"non-real" example; nobody really has that problem it's purely
academical and of no practical use. Contrary to which the traits-based
class kernel is a real example. Regardless of whether you think that
this is an improvement or not, it enables a discussion that otherwise
would be purely on theoretical grounds (and where you end up in a design
discussion instead of an evaluation of what was done). The thing is that
in order to solve "real problems" you have to get your hands dirty,
touch some of the nastier parts of the technology, deal with it. For
defining the success of a technology, this is critical because it
validates whether the ratio of effort and benefit are acceptable on that
level, e.g., whether this technology is only usable for the three things
it does really well (and yeah, if it doesn't do those what's the point)
but also whether you can (when you have to) go beyond that.

Hope this explains what I mean by these terms.

Cheers,
   - Andreas

On Thu, Jul 05, 2007 at 02:41:30PM -0700, Craig Latta wrote:
I don't see duplicated work going on between Pavel and Craig,
only similar results.

Pavel, on the one hand, is finishing up the packaging effort
that started in 3.9 (or earlier; I wasn't here before that). The
goal is to split the monolithic image into packages that load
and unload cleanly. 3.9 got almost all the way there; all that
remained was Morphic. The goal is creating packages that work
with the current tools (Monticello).

Craig, on the other hand, is building a system better able to
handle packaging. Monticello was strapped onto Squeak at a high
level, but is not usable throughout. Spoon, on the other hand,
is the love child of Squeak and Monticello, with growth and
modularity built right in, all the way down to VM support where
necessary.

Thus Pavel is dividing up the image into much more manageable
chunks, and Craig is providing a system for growth. Both
efforts end up creating a small image without any extension
modules, but the work to get there was very different, and was
not duplicated effort.

As soon as spoon learns to walk, I daresay the first thing it
will find to play with is the packages created using Monticello,
including those made by Pavel.

--
Matthew Fulmer -- http://mtfulmer.wordpress.com/
Help improve Squeak Documentation: http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/808

On Thu, Jul 05, 2007 at 03:25:12PM -0700, Andreas Raab wrote:
I have said that. My problem is I want a distributed, sharable
documentation system that works offline. For that, I believe
Spoon is my best choice. I am only waiting on one showstopper
bug to be fixed so I can start building with it.

--
Matthew Fulmer -- http://mtfulmer.wordpress.com/
Help improve Squeak Documentation: http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/808

Hi Andreas--

> > > Have someone other than you use it...
> >
> > Ah, and how do I get them to do that? :)  That sounds like a
> > restatement of the original problem.
>
> No, not really. After all you are positing that this is technology
> that will benefit many people, right? If this is so, there should be
> someone who says that this technology is such a clear win that they're
> willing to give it a shot.

     I'm not sure about that. Matthew's response[1] notwithstanding
(thanks, Matthew! :), what I have seen here is a bunch of people waiting
for someone else to be successful before they will consider making an
attempt. That feels very strange to me given the level of ambition and
adventure I have perceived here in the past.

> So what I'm saying is that one measure of success is whether there is
> actually someone who says "yes, this looks so clearly beneficial to my
> problem that I'm willing to be the first to try it". Every technology
> has that problem, and every successful technology has (by definition)
> overcome it.

     Heh, sure, but often (usually, in my experience) under the
influence of some other force (e.g., "it's from Microsoft"). I have also
seen many good ideas *not* considered because of pressure from some
non-technical concern (e.g., "it's not from Microsoft" ;). But then this
all plays into what "clear win" means... it can become unclear over time. :)


     thanks again,

-C

[1] http://tinyurl.com/34cl8q

--
Craig Latta
improvisational musical informaticist
www.netjam.org
Smalltalkers do: [:it | All with: Class, (And love: it)]

On Thu, 05 Jul 2007 14:41:30 -0700, Craig Latta <[hidden email]> wrote:

>      (Is it just me, or do all your messages come through without
> newlines, even in the quoted material?)

I get the same thing, until I switch to using HTML rendering, and then his
messages come out fine...

Later,
Jon

--------------------------------------------------------------
   Jon Hylands      [hidden email]      http://www.huv.com/jon

  Project: Micro Raptor (Small Biped Velociraptor Robot)
           http://www.huv.com/blog

On Thu, 05 Jul 2007 14:56:59 -0700, Avi Bryant <[hidden email]> wrote:

Maybe I mis-appraise the situation, I can't recall Craig ever asking for  
help. Other than "try out the latest", that is. I don't think there's much  
to be done until Spoon is usable to start adding on.

To strain the metaphor, the subway engineer is really just telling you  
that shovels should be along soon.<s>

Now, maybe I'm mistaken, but it seems to me that the "project of decent  
size" would be Squeak itself. Should Spoon and Squeak not be compatible to  
a high degree, particularly at the higher levels?

Once the shovels are available, I can't imaagine we won't see a lot of  
digging. But that's speculation for now.

I have been trying to follow the 3.10 effort.  Notice I said "trying" -
I'm pretty much lost and playing catchup.  With that said, the
impression I get is that Pavel is trying to do the componentization that
(AFAICT - I'd like to to be wrong) has not materialized.  If that's the
case, more power to him.

With no offense intended to Craig, Spoon appears to be a very much
different effort, and one that is years old.  It might ultimately be
very good for Squeak, but proper packaging and some cruft removal (or
perhaps simply identification) as likely by-product strikes me as the
next logical step for the Squeak.

Just my 2 asCents.  Feel free to straighten me out as appropriate.

Bill




Avi Bryant wrote:
I'll speak plainly back, then. You asked in a recent message how to
get someone else to use Spoon. The only true answer I can give is,
offer them a short term gain. Yes, short term incremental improvement
causes the total effort to be greater, but it also mitigates adoption
risk: at each incremental stage you can assess whether or not people
are actually going to use the work you're doing or not, and modify
what you're doing accordingly. It's great to go off on a long-term
research project and come back with something beautiful, but there is
a significant risk that it will turn out not to be what people
actually want, and get no adoption. Having an incremental process in
the meantime is valuable, both as a backup in case the long-term
project fails, but also to inform the long term project about what the
community finds useful and what falls flat.

In Vancouver, where I live, there is currently a massive multi-year
project going on to extend a subway line from downtown out to the
airport. In 2010, when it's complete, it'll be great. For now, it's
a massive disruption.

I can live with the disruption. Here's what I wouldn't be able to
live with: when I'm standing on the street corner hailing a cab to
take me to the airport, one of the subway engineers comes over and
tells me off. "All you have to do is grab a shovel and help out and
we'll get you to the airport in style - *so* much better than a taxi,
and less total effort in the long run." That's nice, buddy, but I've
got a plane to catch.

Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
University of Florida
Department of Anesthesiology
PO Box 100254
Gainesville, FL 32610-0254

Email: [hidden email]
Tel: (352) 846-1285
FAX: (352) 392-7029

El 7/6/07 11:33 AM, "Bill Schwab" <[hidden email]> escribió:

> I have been trying to follow the 3.10 effort.  Notice I said "trying" -
> I'm pretty much lost and playing catchup.

3.10 try to get closer to MinimalMorphic.

I could unload some more if the same people who said "go Pavel way", don't
cry loud if I think unload his pet.

Named SM, ScriptLoader, some other

Also could unload/load Etoys and Nebraska if they tolerate having some more
unimplemented calls.( Squeak3.10alpha.7091W.image)

We have now close to 200 and coming from ages, not begin with 3.10.
And if 3.10 is useless , how people get the Damien dev image ?

Craig and Pavel deserves my deep respect.
Pavel way is closer to complete deployment and Craig way is Squeak future.
My hope is they discover a cross point and work together.

As I said before, a huge amount of people is not using the last versions of
Squeak.

If we don't wish loose they , should have how to go to last images in the
painless way.

FunSqueak3.10 http://wiki.squeak.org/squeak/5988, shows how people could
have old and new things in a usable image

Live long and prosper

Edgar, from a land far away