[squeak-dev] enablers

Hi--

      Andreas wrote:

 > What is lacking is the same thing that has always been lacking: A way
 > of making decisions which are generally accepted by the community at
 > large. As projects grow, you need a way of making such decisions and
 > for Squeak, after SqC was no longer available as the decision makers,
 > no other generally accepted body has been established.
 >
 > Last year I had really hoped Dan might be the person to break this
 > impasse. From my perspective he is the only person that pretty much
 > every member in this community can agree with. Unfortunately, it
 > didn't work out.
 >
 > But when the mightier are unavailable, the lesser have to stand up.
 > Consequently, I am running in the election this year with one and only
 > one purpose: Fix the processes. Make it possible to come to decisions
 > that are accepted by the community at large. I have started to post my
 > thoughts along these lines at [1].
 >
 > I think that if we can fix the contribution process we will see a
 > resurgence of Squeak contributions. Put this together with a
 > license-clean 4.0 and I think we'll be in a good shape for the next
 > years.

      I heartily agree with all of that, but there's more to it,
something which ought to inform our view of the SqC period and our
expectations for time since then.

      Clearly, the most important thing is a pool of good people. We
still have that. What Squeak Central had, and which we have rarely had
since, is supported time. The financial support that SqC had from Apple
and Disney was critical to its success. It provided them the time to do
their work, and bolstered their authority when debate arose.

      Some of us have had time to contribute when between jobs, or when
working for companies who tolerate our participation (e.g., when using
Squeak as part of some larger development effort). Those are both
useful, and we should use that time where we can. SqC had something
more. They had support (while it lasted) for full-time development of
the core system, as an open-source project. Dan himself is a great
example of this. Just like most of us, he was too busy doing other paid
work last year to participate in the leadership team as he would have liked.

      Of course, establishing an environment that allows something like
SqC to prosper is the real trick. But we shouldn't forget how important
it was in the history of this project.


      thanks,

-C

[1] http://tinyurl.com/cmz4x4 (lists.squeakfoundation.org)

Craig Latta wrote:

>       Of course, establishing an environment that allows something like
> SqC to prosper is the real trick. But we shouldn't forget how important
> it was in the history of this project.

I agree, but don`t see this as something the leadership can do. The
closest we have right now is Eliot Miranda working for Qwaq. I would
like to see more of this, but think it is up to companies linked to the
community rather than the community itself.

About the history, it is important to remember that the original goal
was to build something like Etoys and when Java proved to be an
unsuitable platform there was a loooong detour in bringing Apple
Smalltalk back from the dead. Eventually the platform cleanup was mostly
done and the focus shifted to Etoys, Croquet, Sophie and so on. So by
the original plan we wouldn`t need a SqC anymore. I don`t want to keep
to the original plan but want to push Squeak into the future and if that
requires as new SqC (and I think it does) then this is a great
discussion for us to have right now.

-- Jecel