I think a separate list is a good idea. Why not just set it up at Yahoo? It's
liable to be low-traffic, low-membership and temporary.

Alternatively, if you'd like a discussion-board format for this -- and I could
see some serious advantages to that -- I'd make space available on one of The
WeTalk Network's discussion boards for this conversation. Let me know.

--- Doug Way <dway at riskmetrics.com> wrote:
> 
> Sounds like some reasonable suggestions to me.
> 
> It sounds like things are still relatively up in the air as far as who might
> organize a foundation.  John M.'s report said that one or more people at SS
> on Wednesday mentioned interest, though.
> 
> Would a good next step be to set up a mailing list to help get all interested
> parties involved?  I suppose the foundation could just be discussed on this
> list, but that might be somewhat disruptive.  Karl suggested setting up a
> Swiki, but I don't think that would be sufficient for real discussion
> (although it could be a helpful supplement).
> 
> The mailing list could be public, or maybe semi-private (like the Camp
> Smalltalk list, which is still not too hard to get added to).
> 
> Anyway, I'm just throwing out some ideas, hoping that the momentum doesn't
> get lost.
> 
> By the way, I was also poking around the apache site for information on how
> they organize themselves... see http://www.apache.org/foundation/ .
> 
> - Doug Way
>   dway at riskmetrics.com
> 
> 
> Tim Rowledge wrote:
> > 
> > This is my personal suggestion for somethings the Squeak Foundation
> > could do for us.
> > 
> > Your Mileage May Vary. Contents sold by weight not volume. Not
> > responsible for items left on carriage. Close cover before striking.
> > 
> > The key facility I see a foundation providing is a single, easy to deal
> > with point of contact for people wanting to use Squeak without the
> > excitement of being test-pilots.
> > 
> > One part of this would be a well kept, regularly maintained web presence
> > that gathers together all the appropriate pieces and provides clear
> > concise help on getting them downloaded, installed and started with.
> > Virtually all these are available somewhere or other, but not in a nice
> > clean package. A well thought out bunch of tutorials would make getting
> > started in the squeak life much easier. Several good tutorials exist;
> > combine them as appropriate to make a great one. A decent repository of
> > sources to up to date VM and plugin components is needed; I imagine a
> > CVS database would be a good way to provide that, but whatever is best
> > should be used. This is not to take anything in the way of control away
> > from people that provide the main porting work, more to make sure a
> > clean, tracked, known good set of sources is available to all. A
> > collection of known good projects/fileins/goodies is needed, along with
> > documentation to explain them.
> > 
> > If possible some reasonable first line tech support would be nice; it
> > would at minimum save people from feeling embarassed to ask 'dumb
> > newbie' questions to the list at large.
> > 
> > An important activity would be feeding bug fixes and useful improvements
> > from the test-pilot school into the mainstream stable system. This can
> > be hard work, since things can rapidly drift apart, so a lot of care and
> > testing and knowledge of the system is required. At suitable points, the
> > stable system mantle can be migrated to a subsequent system. Deciding
> > when to do this can be tricky. Improvements in modularity and the tools
> > to manage it would help a lot, and some of this work is already being
> > done with the StableSqueak project. For people to feel like trusting
> > Squeak for commercial work, or simply work that is important to them, it
> > needs some fairly serious engineering to tease out loopholes, snip off
> > loose ends, fill in potholes etc.
> > 
> > With decent funding a foundation might be able to sponsor students to
> > OOPSLA/ Smalltalk Solutions etc, support the GaTech Swiki, even perhaps
> > run a conference. Maybe provide some money to encourage articles about
> > Squeak in the general press. Hey, even more nice badges, neat
> > sweatshirts and cool posters!
> > 
> > I think the foundation could be a really useful entity. I've already
> > spent non-trivial time working on the idea with Dave and others (who can
> > unmask themselves as and when they wish) and I'm happy to spend more
> > time on it. I hope you are, too.
> > 
> > tim
> > 
> > --
> > Tim Rowledge, tim at sumeru.stanford.edu, http://sumeru.stanford.edu/tim
> > All new: The software is not compatible with previous versions.
> 


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