The land of the Mice, a bedtime story

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The land of the Mice, a bedtime story

Göran Krampe
Let me tell you a story...

I was around... when King Dan ruled the Land of the Mice, his court the
"SqC" was strong and the stream was flowing smoothly. It was a glorious
and joyous time and I were there to see sir PWS, sir Comanche and
princess Swiki being born as children of Socket. The wizard Morphic was
still young and agile at that time...

Things were well, but not everyone were happy in the Land of the Mice -
the population grew quickly and only the fortunate ones to enter the
castle Image could have their fields fully prosper and not wither and
die in the harsh outbacks of the Internet.

During this era the (oh, so lonely) renegades of Stable Squeak rose and
fell. A noteworthy effort and something to learn from, they were
probably the first to wander outside of the monarchy trying to create
something on their own. But they tried to do everything on their own and
soon perished under lack of time. Together we are strong but in few
numbers we do not weigh that much.

I was around... at the Great Gathering (OOPSLA) when King Dan and his
court withdrew from power and left the land in the hands of the Guides,
a humble group that tried to guide, but did not manage to lead and
capture the hearts and dedication of mice as the formidable King had
been able to do before them.

Only a few brave souls during this era kept the state apparatus working
- wanderer Marcus and blacksmith Doug comes to mind, also being guides
at the time and doing a fearful amount of work to keep our stream
facilities working.

Though clearly undecisive, this era was still to be remembered as a
relatively good time - the time when a lot of new useful structures were
erected by brave dedicated citizens, like for example monastery
Monticello, the castle of SqueakSource and the holy library of
SqueakMap. And the new popular plaza - SqP - where citizens could post
their writings on walls for all to see. All in all, great
accomplishments - but still, an undecisive era becoming more and more
vague in direction and loosing momentum.

I was around... to see the revolution that begun the short third era -
the one year of benevolent dictatorship. A small group took a firmer
charge of the land, by force - with the aim to create a new
constitution. This was not looked upon as something good by all
citizens. It was also the rebirth of Squeak.org and the acquisition of
the electronical citadell - box2 - where all holy scrolls and resources
were kept.

During this year they started a process towards a democracy, strongly
believing that this was the only way forward for the land of the mice -
a stronger rule enabled by the display of trust from the citizens. This
group had many names but promised *one* thing, and that was to step down
after exactly one year. And when one year had passed this was also
fulfilled and they were replaced with a group elected directly by the
people!

The land of the mice entered the fourth era - the era of The Board, a
Democracy.

During the second, third and fourth era, groups of fellow citizens moved
off in different directions and created new communities throughout the
land like the mysterious Croquet island, the infectious brotherhood of
Seaside, the true temple of the Spoon, the state bureau of Mantis and
lately even a modest but popular food court called SqueakDev, just to
mention a few. The land of the mice is fertile with more citicens than
ever, even though spread out in various parts of the continent.

We are now in the second year of the fourth era. Are the citizens happy?
Or is there confusion and paralysis spreading slowly across the land? Is
the bureacracy and constitution working as we hoped or is it slowly
eroding the hearts and souls of mice? ...is the magic gone?

And if this is so.... what can we learn from history to do something
about it?

Can our land be yet again changed through a revolution? Would it be
wise? Or is it just a lack of strong builders creating new castles and
houses of wonder? Can the land sustain more than one castle?

...to change the land of mice... or to raise the sails and find new land
across the sea?

And with those words my friends, it is time for you to sleep on it. Good
night.

/Göran

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Re: The land of the Mice, a bedtime story

Edgar J. De Cleene



El 6/29/07 2:51 PM, "[hidden email]" <[hidden email]> escribió:

> And with those words my friends, it is time for you to sleep on it. Good
> night.
>
> /Göran

The story is very good and the storyteller awesome.

The South is full of dreamers, short of magic but trying hard

Edgar



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RE: The land of the Mice, a bedtime story

Ron Teitelbaum
In reply to this post by Göran Krampe
Hello all,

I just received an email from a colleague that basically said I'm doing Ruby
in Steel, not because I want to but because I have to.  It is horrible, the
debugger doesn't work and the people that wrote it don't even know that it
doesn't work.  It's amazing how much better Smalltalk is.  It's not even
funny.

I would like to remind everyone that this community has great potential.
The issues of leadership and organization are only stepping stones to a
better community.  It's difficult to see the community as a whole, but it is
worth trying to do so.  The major disagreements between extremely talented
contributors are minor compared to the entire community and the results,
which is Squeak, of past contributions and collaborations.  We are much more
then the sum of our disagreements.  

I see major movement in our community.  I do see some splintering, but more
then the splintering, I see a willingness to contribute back pieces that
will benefit Squeak.  We need to find the path past the current clean up
work *, and create a way for the community to accept and embrace this
terrific new development work that is going on around us.  

Personally I believe that we need to continue to build a strong application
community.  What we have now, a beautiful development environment and
programming language, is only half of what we could be.  I would love to see
more fully developed applications like Seaside, Croquet, Gjallar, and Magma
and ways for people to contribute application components like security,
deployment, and protocol implementations.  I do like the idea of building
and supporting a Squeak Marketplace where people with development needs
could come and pay for development work, find consultants, and get things
done.  We need more support organizations.  We should be supporting better
documentation.  We also need to spend more time on security.  

The community is still alive and well, the progress we are making is all
good, and I hope that this Squeak stepping stone leads to a place that will
continue to attract the best and inspire the leaders to continue
contributing to what is, in my opinion, the best programming concept
available.  It's not even funny how good we are.  There are a lot of
developers that I know that would love to be working in Smalltalk that are
depending on us to succeed at our quest.

Thank you Göran for your story.  It was really great!

Happy Coding!

Ron Teitelbaum
President / Principal Software Engineer
US Medical Record Specialists
www.USMedRec.com

* Thank you everyone that is participating in reorganizing and cleaning up
the community, from 3.10 to the websites, news, docs and PR teams, and thank
you to the board for moving us forward and helping with funding.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [hidden email]
>
> Let me tell you a story...
>
> I was around...
>
> /Göran



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Re: The land of the Mice, a bedtime story

Chris Muller-3
In reply to this post by Göran Krampe
My dream is for a tiny Spoon image to be the starting basis for
anywhere anyone wants to go.  Everyone gets to be their own dictator,
and yet the community is held together by publishable / published
modules (configurations) that allow rich-content images to be built
with one-click.  Today these images (Dev, Croquet, Squeakland, et al)
are pre-built.  Tomorrow (I hope) they will be defined as one-click
loadable (Naiad?) modules loadable into the 10K starting image.

When someone needs two modules to work together that aren't already
working together, they make it happen (by factoring) and then publish
it so that others can benefit.  Thus the harvesting burden becomes
distributed throughout the community.

I think a management piece would be needed to keep track of the
resulting module explosion.  More importantly, we need a VM that
integrates Spoon with other fine projects produced by the community,
like Exupery and others..


On 6/29/07, [hidden email] <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Let me tell you a story...
>
> I was around... when King Dan ruled the Land of the Mice, his court the
> "SqC" was strong and the stream was flowing smoothly. It was a glorious
> and joyous time and I were there to see sir PWS, sir Comanche and
> princess Swiki being born as children of Socket. The wizard Morphic was
> still young and agile at that time...
>
> Things were well, but not everyone were happy in the Land of the Mice -
> the population grew quickly and only the fortunate ones to enter the
> castle Image could have their fields fully prosper and not wither and
> die in the harsh outbacks of the Internet.
>
> During this era the (oh, so lonely) renegades of Stable Squeak rose and
> fell. A noteworthy effort and something to learn from, they were
> probably the first to wander outside of the monarchy trying to create
> something on their own. But they tried to do everything on their own and
> soon perished under lack of time. Together we are strong but in few
> numbers we do not weigh that much.
>
> I was around... at the Great Gathering (OOPSLA) when King Dan and his
> court withdrew from power and left the land in the hands of the Guides,
> a humble group that tried to guide, but did not manage to lead and
> capture the hearts and dedication of mice as the formidable King had
> been able to do before them.
>
> Only a few brave souls during this era kept the state apparatus working
> - wanderer Marcus and blacksmith Doug comes to mind, also being guides
> at the time and doing a fearful amount of work to keep our stream
> facilities working.
>
> Though clearly undecisive, this era was still to be remembered as a
> relatively good time - the time when a lot of new useful structures were
> erected by brave dedicated citizens, like for example monastery
> Monticello, the castle of SqueakSource and the holy library of
> SqueakMap. And the new popular plaza - SqP - where citizens could post
> their writings on walls for all to see. All in all, great
> accomplishments - but still, an undecisive era becoming more and more
> vague in direction and loosing momentum.
>
> I was around... to see the revolution that begun the short third era -
> the one year of benevolent dictatorship. A small group took a firmer
> charge of the land, by force - with the aim to create a new
> constitution. This was not looked upon as something good by all
> citizens. It was also the rebirth of Squeak.org and the acquisition of
> the electronical citadell - box2 - where all holy scrolls and resources
> were kept.
>
> During this year they started a process towards a democracy, strongly
> believing that this was the only way forward for the land of the mice -
> a stronger rule enabled by the display of trust from the citizens. This
> group had many names but promised *one* thing, and that was to step down
> after exactly one year. And when one year had passed this was also
> fulfilled and they were replaced with a group elected directly by the
> people!
>
> The land of the mice entered the fourth era - the era of The Board, a
> Democracy.
>
> During the second, third and fourth era, groups of fellow citizens moved
> off in different directions and created new communities throughout the
> land like the mysterious Croquet island, the infectious brotherhood of
> Seaside, the true temple of the Spoon, the state bureau of Mantis and
> lately even a modest but popular food court called SqueakDev, just to
> mention a few. The land of the mice is fertile with more citicens than
> ever, even though spread out in various parts of the continent.
>
> We are now in the second year of the fourth era. Are the citizens happy?
> Or is there confusion and paralysis spreading slowly across the land? Is
> the bureacracy and constitution working as we hoped or is it slowly
> eroding the hearts and souls of mice? ...is the magic gone?
>
> And if this is so.... what can we learn from history to do something
> about it?
>
> Can our land be yet again changed through a revolution? Would it be
> wise? Or is it just a lack of strong builders creating new castles and
> houses of wonder? Can the land sustain more than one castle?
>
> ...to change the land of mice... or to raise the sails and find new land
> across the sea?
>
> And with those words my friends, it is time for you to sleep on it. Good
> night.
>
> /Göran
>
>


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Re: The land of the Mice, a bedtime story

K. K. Subramaniam
On Monday 02 July 2007 7:03 am, Chris Muller wrote:
> My dream is for a tiny Spoon image to be the starting basis for
> anywhere anyone wants to go.  Everyone gets to be their own dictator,
> and yet the community is held together by publishable / published
> modules (configurations) that allow rich-content images to be built
> with one-click.  Today these images (Dev, Croquet, Squeakland, et al)
> are pre-built.  Tomorrow (I hope) they will be defined as one-click
> loadable (Naiad?) modules loadable into the 10K starting image.
I see Squeak being pulled apart by two (often opposing) forces.

As a learning medium, Squeak needs to be simple enough for children to use it
as a dynamic multimedia book for self learning. It would complement textbook
and notebooks (and may even replace them over time). It could be used
standalone, in a mesh network or connected to Internet. It needs to be small
(SVG, virtual fonts?), multilingual (Unicode, UTF-8, indic, arabic support
etc) and have content (e.g. Projects and Active Essays) usable by young
learners.  Like TeX, it needs to be usable at all times and approach
stability asymptotically. It is not aimed at a 'market' in the sense that its
success cannot be measured in terms of profitability. Squeakland is pulling
it this way.

As a programmer's workbench, Squeak needs more VM modules and application
frameworks. It needs better tools for browsing, coding, debugging and
tracing. Stability takes a backseat to features. It would be pretty useless
without network access to updates and packages. Multilingual is nice but not
a show stopper. It is used to assemble products aimed at specific markets
(Plopp, Sophie). Profitability is important. Squeak-dev is pulling it this
way.

I don't see  1) being a proper subset of 2). The communities are very
different and the Land needs more than one castle :-).

Regards .. Subbu

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Re: The land of the Mice, a bedtime story

Igor Stasenko
> I don't see  1) being a proper subset of 2). The communities are very
> different and the Land needs more than one castle :-).
>
> Regards .. Subbu
>
>
to what i see, this land needs:
- good newspaper
- marketplace
- library
- college and scools
- roads with directions

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RE: The land of the Mice, a bedtime story

Sebastian Sastre-2
Hi!

        Now we should think producing the movie :)

        Now seriously.. also a little of intellectual ergonomy will not
hurt. As I see things Smalltalk born as an intellectual ergonomic approach
to map the computers behavior to human thinking (and not the otherwise).
Smalltalk is very good maping abstract thinking (and dynamic behavior
trhough the use of messages). So it succeeds now in the most fundamental
parts for this mapping goal and does it as an ergonomic and minimalistic
machine.

        The thing is, that there are *a lot* of other ergonomic details that
are in the path to the human beigns in the human-computer interaction. And
they that can be improved to make it a better path.

        Think of going minimalistically and smoothly trough the path that
goes through the hands and fingers (or whatever human hardware) to the
abtractions in the synapses of the human brain: Smalltalk has an serious
good chance of success. Also it's focus it's not diverging of this.

        So if we can advance little by little prioritizing de development of
the prioritest details that makes this path smoother we will be improving
the heuristic scoring of squeak. This is to make an heuristic machine to be
better in it's "heuristicality".

        And now to think concretely about what could be good in this
direction for diferent cases, we should ask ourselves constantly:

        "what the interfcace of this tool/subsystem needs to lead me to the
"eureka effect" more confortably, naturally or intuitively and so to unblock
me in this concrete case that, I, the (human beign) user, am working on?"

        A simplistic (so most probably incomplete) approach for this will
be: to evade violations to the main design principles.

        All the best,

Sebastian Sastre
Design reference: http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html


> -----Mensaje original-----
> De: [hidden email]
> [mailto:[hidden email]] En
> nombre de sig
> Enviado el: Lunes, 02 de Julio de 2007 05:13
> Para: The general-purpose Squeak developers list
> Asunto: Re: The land of the Mice, a bedtime story
>
> > I don't see  1) being a proper subset of 2). The
> communities are very
> > different and the Land needs more than one castle :-).
> >
> > Regards .. Subbu
> >
> >
> to what i see, this land needs:
> - good newspaper
> - marketplace
> - library
> - college and scools
> - roads with directions
>


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re: The land of the Mice, a bedtime story

ccrraaiigg
In reply to this post by Göran Krampe

Hi Göran and everyone--

     Whoa, I guess it's way past time for an update from the board. ;)
(Seriously, it's way past time and as de facto board secretary I do
apologize.)

     We are in the final stages of discussion with the Software Freedom
Law Center[1] about Squeak joining as a member project of their Software
Freedom Conservancy[2]. By "final" I mean that we have a legal agreement
in front of us, we're discussing slight modifications to it, and we're
about to sign it. After the board and the SFLC are happy with it, we
will forward it to squeak-dev. We intend to sign it within a couple of
weeks after that. I'm acting as the liaison between the board and the
SFLC. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Ron Teitelbaum again
for suggesting and advocating working with the SFLC.

     If you are surprised that we've done this without enough public
discussion (although we did mention it on squeak-dev at multiple points
in the past), again please accept our apologies. We believe we are doing
what you elected us to do.

     Please do follow the SFLC and Conservancy links to remind yourself
why this will be a good arrangement. Basically, they will handle the
legal stuff, including being able to accept tax-exempt donations on
Squeak's behalf. Stay tuned for the minute details, most likely after
the board meeting on 18 July, where we will have SFLC counsel as a guest.

     Yes, this is all taking much longer than any of us would like. But
it's happening! Zoom out a little bit and remember some of the things
we've (finally) accomplished:

-    The original Squeak release is now available to us under better
license terms (that took a lot of personal cajoling on the part of
myself and several others)

-    We are very close to having written consent to new terms on behalf
of each subsequent contributor to Squeak.

-    We are on the verge of allying the project with an organization
that will make us legally viable.

***

     Now, as for the bedtime story: while I enjoyed it immensely, I
think it does point out a not-so-subtle problem that our community has.
Some reverence for those who have come before you is good, but I think
we take it a little too far. Yes, Dan and the rest of the original
Squeak team are very talented, but we should also realize that they had
financial support for their efforts. We are simply not working with the
external resources that they had.

     I think we are too quick to frame technical decisions with the
question "What would they have done?" We need to think for ourselves; no
one has all the answers. The Squeak team has achieved a wonderful thing,
and has made an amazing gift of it to us, but we should not be
distracted from our own powers.

     For my own part, I am always eager to lend whatever help I can,
including making executive decisions. I've certainly made a few in the
process of making us legally "real", and I think it's turning out well.
I have no problem speaking for the board to the rest of the community,
and to others on behalf of the community. I'm not going to force myself
on anyone, I think that's just unrealistic amongst peers. Rather, I will
continue to act on our behalf as long as I'm asked.

     Our other big problem is that everyone is generally too polite to
do anything that smacks of autocracy (despite an apparent longing for it
:). This is normal-- we're friendly people. I'm willing, however, to
wield whatever authority is given to me (and I am :).


     thanks,

-C

[1] http://www.softwarefreedom.org
[2] http://conservancy.softwarefreedom.org

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


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Re: The land of the Mice, a bedtime story

ccrraaiigg
In reply to this post by Chris Muller-3

Hi Chris--

> My dream is for a tiny Spoon image to be the starting basis for
> anywhere anyone wants to go.  Everyone gets to be their own dictator,
> and yet the community is held together by publishable / published
> modules (configurations) that allow rich-content images to be built
> with one-click.  Today these images (Dev, Croquet, Squeakland, et al)
> are pre-built.  Tomorrow (I hope) they will be defined as one-click
> loadable (Naiad?) modules loadable into the 10K starting image.

     Sounds great to me. :)  (And yeah, Naiad[1] modules.)

> I think a management piece would be needed to keep track of the
> resulting module explosion.

     The Naiad design features a relay network of module servers that
can provide discovery service.

> More importantly, we need a VM that integrates Spoon with other fine
> projects produced by the community, like Exupery and others..

     Yes.


     thanks,

-C

[1] http://tinyurl.com/35xt5x (lists.squeakfoundation.org)

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


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Re: The land of the Mice, a bedtime story

Igor Stasenko
In reply to this post by ccrraaiigg
>
>      Our other big problem is that everyone is generally too polite to
> do anything that smacks of autocracy (despite an apparent longing for it
> :). This is normal-- we're friendly people. I'm willing, however, to
> wield whatever authority is given to me (and I am :).
>

I want to note, that when i first joined IRC, and mailing list i was
surprised, how friendly people here. Strange enough for me. I never
met such friendly and polite community before :)
I wonder, is this some kind of karma of people who dedicate themselves
to smalltalk? :)

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RE: The land of the Mice, a bedtime story

Sebastian Sastre-2

> I want to note, that when i first joined IRC, and mailing
> list i was surprised, how friendly people here. Strange
> enough for me. I never met such friendly and polite community
> before :) I wonder, is this some kind of karma of people who
> dedicate themselves to smalltalk? :)
>
Well.. it's ok you still have the doubt. Just give it some time... :D

        all the best,

Sebastian


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Re: The land of the Mice, a bedtime story

Gary Fisher-3
In reply to this post by Igor Stasenko
Smalltalkers don't treat people as objects.


----- Original Message -----

"I wonder, is this some kind of karma of people who dedicate themselves to
smalltalk? :)"


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Re: The land of the Mice, a bedtime story

Derek O'Connell-2
Squeak == Spoon == Squeak? Then there's SqueakDev, SqueakLight, all
the various "official" releases/versions, etc, etc. No surprise then
that the last time I suggested to someone to take a look at Squeak I
got the response "Which one?". With respect Craig, I appreciate the
thought that you and others put into the more fundamental aspects (as
well as the legal aspects) but I think the "board" should put some
effort into a road-map that explains how various efforts relate and
where things such as Spoon fit in to the overall picture. I have
always assumed Spoon to be your pet project to do things as *you*
prefer and/or for your own purposes. I'm not aware of any group input
into Spoon's design. That's not to say I don't like the idea of a
minimal highly customisable/dynamic image, I do, but others could be
forgiven for wondering if they are looking at coherent pieces of a
jigsaw or fragments remaining from a nasty explosion :-) No offence
intended.

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RE: The land of the Mice, a bedtime story

J J-6
In reply to this post by Göran Krampe
> Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 13:12:18 +0300
> From: [hidden email]
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: Re: The land of the Mice, a bedtime story
>
> I want to note, that when i first joined IRC, and mailing list i was
> surprised, how friendly people here. Strange enough for me. I never
> met such friendly and polite community before :)
> I wonder, is this some kind of karma of people who dedicate themselves
> to smalltalk? :)

Could be.  If you use most of the mainstream languages, things are so hard to do that it makes people grumpy. :)


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

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Re: The land of the Mice, a bedtime story

Trygve
In reply to this post by ccrraaiigg
Craig,
US Law is pretty intimidating to me who, after all, is just a poor
foreigner.
So my sincere thanks for clearing the field for me.
Also my sincere thanks for not involving the community in long and
premature discussions.
I have looked at your references and expect to applaud your proposal
strongly and loudly when the time comes.
--Trygve

On 03.07.2007 04:26, Craig Latta wrote:

> Hi Göran and everyone--
>
>      Whoa, I guess it's way past time for an update from the board. ;)
> (Seriously, it's way past time and as de facto board secretary I do
> apologize.)
>
>      We are in the final stages of discussion with the Software Freedom
> Law Center[1] about Squeak joining as a member project of their Software
> Freedom Conservancy[2]. By "final" I mean that we have a legal agreement
> in front of us, we're discussing slight modifications to it, and we're
> about to sign it. After the board and the SFLC are happy with it, we
> will forward it to squeak-dev. We intend to sign it within a couple of
> weeks after that. I'm acting as the liaison between the board and the
> SFLC. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Ron Teitelbaum again
> for suggesting and advocating working with the SFLC.
>
>      If you are surprised that we've done this without enough public
> discussion (although we did mention it on squeak-dev at multiple points
> in the past), again please accept our apologies. We believe we are doing
> what you elected us to do.
>
>      Please do follow the SFLC and Conservancy links to remind yourself
> why this will be a good arrangement. Basically, they will handle the
> legal stuff, including being able to accept tax-exempt donations on
> Squeak's behalf. Stay tuned for the minute details, most likely after
> the board meeting on 18 July, where we will have SFLC counsel as a guest.
>
>      Yes, this is all taking much longer than any of us would like. But
> it's happening! Zoom out a little bit and remember some of the things
> we've (finally) accomplished:
>
> -    The original Squeak release is now available to us under better
> license terms (that took a lot of personal cajoling on the part of
> myself and several others)
>
> -    We are very close to having written consent to new terms on behalf
> of each subsequent contributor to Squeak.
>
> -    We are on the verge of allying the project with an organization
> that will make us legally viable.
>
> ***
>
>      Now, as for the bedtime story: while I enjoyed it immensely, I
> think it does point out a not-so-subtle problem that our community has.
> Some reverence for those who have come before you is good, but I think
> we take it a little too far. Yes, Dan and the rest of the original
> Squeak team are very talented, but we should also realize that they had
> financial support for their efforts. We are simply not working with the
> external resources that they had.
>
>      I think we are too quick to frame technical decisions with the
> question "What would they have done?" We need to think for ourselves; no
> one has all the answers. The Squeak team has achieved a wonderful thing,
> and has made an amazing gift of it to us, but we should not be
> distracted from our own powers.
>
>      For my own part, I am always eager to lend whatever help I can,
> including making executive decisions. I've certainly made a few in the
> process of making us legally "real", and I think it's turning out well.
> I have no problem speaking for the board to the rest of the community,
> and to others on behalf of the community. I'm not going to force myself
> on anyone, I think that's just unrealistic amongst peers. Rather, I will
> continue to act on our behalf as long as I'm asked.
>
>      Our other big problem is that everyone is generally too polite to
> do anything that smacks of autocracy (despite an apparent longing for it
> :). This is normal-- we're friendly people. I'm willing, however, to
> wield whatever authority is given to me (and I am :).
>
>
>      thanks,
>
> -C
>
> [1] http://www.softwarefreedom.org
> [2] http://conservancy.softwarefreedom.org
>
>  


--

Trygve Reenskaug      mailto: [hidden email]
Morgedalsvn. 5A       http://folk.uio.no/trygver
N-0378 Oslo           Tel: (+47) 22 49 57 27
Norway
 


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Re: The land of the Mice, a bedtime story

stephane ducasse
In reply to this post by ccrraaiigg
I *****agree******!

You should invent the next generation Smalltalk with:
        - good packages
        - security
        - minimal core
        - well design Meta object protocol (I have some ideas there)
        - lean and clean code

Stef

On 3 juil. 07, at 04:26, Craig Latta wrote:

>      Now, as for the bedtime story: while I enjoyed it immensely, I
> think it does point out a not-so-subtle problem that our community  
> has.
> Some reverence for those who have come before you is good, but I think
> we take it a little too far. Yes, Dan and the rest of the original
> Squeak team are very talented, but we should also realize that they  
> had
> financial support for their efforts. We are simply not working with  
> the
> external resources that they had.
>
>      I think we are too quick to frame technical decisions with the
> question "What would they have done?" We need to think for  
> ourselves; no
> one has all the answers. The Squeak team has achieved a wonderful  
> thing,
> and has made an amazing gift of it to us, but we should not be
> distracted from our own powers.


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Re: The land of the Mice, a bedtime story

ccrraaiigg
In reply to this post by Derek O'Connell-2

Hi Derek--

> Squeak == Spoon == Squeak?

     I intend that Spoon be the basis of a future major release of
Squeak (e.g., Squeak 4). I talk a bit more about this in the FAQ section
of [1].

> Then there's SqueakDev, SqueakLight, all the various "official"
> releases/versions, etc, etc.

     I think it's reasonable to say that only what you find at
http://squeak.org is official. No one has claimed that the variants you
mention are official.

> No surprise then that the last time I suggested to someone to take a
> look at Squeak I got the response "Which one?".

     Well, the best answer is probably "the official one, Squeak 3.9
final at squeak.org".

> With respect Craig...

     Uh-oh. ;)

> ...I appreciate the thought that you and others put into the more
> fundamental aspects (as well as the legal aspects) but I think the
> "board" should put some effort into a road-map that explains how
> various efforts relate and where things such as Spoon fit in to the
> overall picture.

     Okay, you're asking us to take on some of the tasks of the release
team. That's not unreasonable; we haven't done it yet because we simply
don't have enough available time to reach consensus about it. That's why
we delegated the task to a separate release team.

     If you want *me* to give you a roadmap, hey, no sweat, I'll give
you one. :)

> I have always assumed Spoon to be your pet project to do things as
> *you* prefer and/or for your own purposes.

     No, I'm trying to create something usable by everyone (a kernel).

> I'm not aware of any group input into Spoon's design.

     I discuss every significant bit of progress. I ask for feedback
constantly. I make public releases. I ask for feedback constantly.
There's a Spoon mailing list. I ask for feedback constantly. :) What
more can I do? You can't force anyone to spend energy (nor would you
want to).

     I will note, though, that you just came dangerously close to
offering some input into Spoon's design. ;)  Why not go all the way? :)

> That's not to say I don't like the idea of a minimal highly
> customisable/dynamic image, I do, but others could be forgiven for
> wondering if they are looking at coherent pieces of a jigsaw or
> fragments remaining from a nasty explosion :-)

     Well, if so, that's the first time I've heard anyone say that. In
particular, I think a reading of the Spoon mailing list archives is
surprisingly coherent, although it does take some patience.

> No offence intended.

     None taken; thanks!


-C

[1] http://netjam.org/spoon/releases/current

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


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Re: The land of the Mice, a bedtime story

Ken Causey-3
On Tue, 2007-07-03 at 14:42 -0700, Craig Latta wrote:
>      I think it's reasonable to say that only what you find at
> http://squeak.org is official. No one has claimed that the variants you
> mention are official.

I suggest this is overly simple.  The Squeak.org site does link to other
images including SqueakLight and Squeak-dev.  My inclination is to
suggest http://ftp.squeak.org/  But I myself have also muddied the
waters there by offering hosting to 'forked' images there.

If we want to clarify what is and is not 'official' it might be
necessary to organize things a little different on http://Squeak.org/ .

Ken



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re: The land of the Mice, a bedtime story

ccrraaiigg

Hi Ken--

> > I think it's reasonable to say that only what you find at
> > http://squeak.org is official. No one has claimed that the variants
> > you mention are official.
>
> I suggest this is overly simple.  The Squeak.org site does link to
> other images including SqueakLight and Squeak-dev.  My inclination is
> to suggest http://ftp.squeak.org/  But I myself have also muddied the
> waters there by offering hosting to 'forked' images there.

     Good points; my recollection is that dead-easy to tell what the
"official release" is if you go to squeak.org. I grant that it could be
even better.


     thanks,

-C

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


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Re: The land of the Mice, a bedtime story

Blake-5
In reply to this post by Ken Causey-3
On Tue, 03 Jul 2007 15:24:24 -0700, Ken Causey <[hidden email]> wrote:

> I suggest this is overly simple.  The Squeak.org site does link to other
> images including SqueakLight and Squeak-dev.  My inclination is to
> suggest http://ftp.squeak.org/  But I myself have also muddied the
> waters there by offering hosting to 'forked' images there.
>
> If we want to clarify what is and is not 'official' it might be
> necessary to organize things a little different on http://Squeak.org/ .

I dunno. If you go to Squeak.Org, there's this bright green panel on the  
right that says "Download", Latest Releae 3.9, with links for "Windows",  
"Mac" and "Others", and a link for installation help. That p0anel is on  
every page. While SqueakLight and Squeak-dev aren't anywhere on the first  
page. I wouldn't think there'd be much question.

Yeah, they're on the download page, under pre-configured images and  
perhaps what is needed is an explanation of what a "pre-configured image"  
is. Though the descriptions of each are pretty clear.

Obviously someone had trouble with it, but it's really pretty  
straightforward.


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