Is this list a chat or a list REALLY ?

John Hinsley jhinsley at telinco.co.uk
Thu Aug 9 11:56:10 UTC 2001


Stephane Ducasse wrote:
> 
> Hi
> 
> Sorry to be boring but could everybody think that we are damaging this list
> as a means to attract people to Squeak just because lot of emails are
> "bar-talks"?
> 
> Am I the only one ***really*** bored?

I don't think it's *such* a bad thing that people just natter to each
other from time to time. For example, the "help, unemployed" thread
wasn't one I felt I could contribute to, but I would like to see (or
have a better idea of) Daniel's project. Equally, I'm hacked off by the
"alleged" spam bot, but I'd like to see the code. But then, I'm pretty
chaotic and believe in serendipity.

> 
> I think that lot of important topics like the following ones could be
> discussed:
> 
>     - why the open-source model of squeak does not work?

I don't see any evidence of this at all. 

>     For example I do not really know the other open source movements but
>     it seems that we could have

>         - call for improvement where people could argue why a
>         crucial change have to be done.

Isn't this going back to the old fork/Stable Squeak thread? I remember
thinking at the time that if I didn't like Squeak so much, I'd have
ditched it on the spot! No-one wants to put time into learning something
that'll be ditched/radically changed in the next few months. I think
change should be organic: I like Morphic, but I'm happy that MVC is
still there.

> 
>         - much better enhancement integration instead of waiting that SqC
>         agrees or does the job (I think that this should not be their role).
>         I have the feeling that Squeak is not open. This is not intended
>         against SqC but against the process itself.

I think what we have works fairly well. While the *chat* has been going
on I noticed thast Ned had posted 3 changesets (I think that one may fix
something that Stephen Pair already posted a fix for, BTW ;-) ).
> 
>         I'm thinking that we are too self-oriented and not looking for
>         successes of the other communities.

But I'm completely unsure of how this can be done. After all, the
success of Java is a complete mystery to most people, and I don't see
the Perl and Python communities out there selling themselves. I note --
as a Linux advocate -- that it's actually very difficult to argue for
something without putting people's backs up/noses out of joint. 

> 
>         - having a infrastructure that support changes identification in a
>         much better way that changeset so that we can built a squeak from a
>         list of modules.
> 
>         - For example VMMkaer is a good way to support the distribution and
>         building of VM
> 
> So I expect at least one of you to say just do it!
> I do what I can ;)
> 
> But are you really sure that I'm wrong.

Hell no. But then, I'm not sure you're right, either ;-)

Cheers

John

-- 
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Marx: "Why do Anarchists only drink herbal tea?"
Proudhon: "Because all proper tea is theft."
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