Dan,
  thanks again for your hard work and especially your patience!

david

At 02:00 PM 7/14/99 -0800, you wrote:
>Folks -
>
>This has been, and presumably will continue for a while to be, a really
useful discussion.
>
>Here's what I propose to do in the course of the next week...
>
>1.  I am NOT going to deal with the big projects, some of which I listed in
my first message on this topic (but keep reading).  Me feeling is that these
will take time to sort out appropriately.
>
>2.  I AM going to get out a 2.5 release as soon as I can stop communicating
and get to work.
>
>3.  At the time of the 2.5 release, a new version will also be declared on
the update servers called, eg, 'Squeak2.6test'.  As before, bug-fixes and
no-brainer enhancements will be issued for normal users of the 2.5 release.
Anyone who wishes to be a test pilot can simply advance their version to
Squeak2.6test and fetch updates again.  Knowing that only test pilots will
receive them, we can cheerfully issue the latest updates weekly (I will
still buffer them, since we do occasionally foul up).
>
>4.  Regarding the larger projects that Squeak needs but that we are not
controlling, I want to try a new approach.  A couple of people have
suggested voting.  I'm not really in favor of this and, what's more, it
doesn't address the real problem.  My proposal is that we identify a list of
such projects (we have a start already) and then, for each one, identify a
group of 3 to 5 competent people to carry it through to completion.  I'm
going to suggest that one of these people be from Squeak Central, even if
they don't actually do any coding.  This will ensure that any concerns we
have will get addressed, that we can track the progress, and that whoever is
doing the hard work will know there is buy-in at Squeak Central from the
start.  As used above, "to completion" means that it's ready to be issued as
an update to the test pilots.
>
>5.  There has also been some discussion of the need for several different
flavors of image.  The two significant dimensions are stable-to-current and
minimal-to-chockfull.  I believe that the bifurcation and guaranteed
frequent distribution of updates answers the first need effectively.  In the
spectrum of feature inclusion, I simply don't feel ready to specify the
final solution.  Therefore 2.5 will be released chock-full as usual, but
with a simple set of doits for removing most of what you would expect to be
absent in a "basic" release.  Have lots of further thoughts that I will
summarize in a separate message.
>
>... and one more thing ...
>I like the term "Squeak Central" that several of you use.  "The Squeak
Team" seems in retrospect to have been a rather elitist term for us.
Everyone on this list is part of The Squeak Team.  We are Central because of
where we are in the process, and that seems fine.  So, with thanks for the
contribution, I'll sign off as
>
>	- Dan, for Squeak Central
>


--
        j. david farber
    oo architect+mentor
numenor labs incorporated
in sunny boulder colorado
    dfarber at numenor.com
        www.numenor.com