Community and Artifact Define One Another

Stephen Pair spair at advantive.com
Thu May 31 18:11:26 UTC 2001


I think people seem to forget that for a long time now, we've had a fork
that has quite successfully co-existed with the rest of the Squeak
community.  I think it has also been mutually beneficial.  It's called
ComSwiki and can be downloaded at:

	http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/swiki

- Stephen

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Roger Vossler [mailto:rvossler at qwest.net]
> Sent: Thursday, May 31, 2001 1:48 PM
> To: squeak at cs.uiuc.edu
> Subject: Re: Community and Artifact Define One Another
>
>
> Hi Gang,
>     Exactly and well stated. Fork the artifact and you fork the community.
> Fork the community and you fork the artifact. So, we now have three
> artifacts and three communities: SqC, SqF, and StSq. This should be
> interesting to watch. :-)
> Cheers, Roger.....
>
> "Andrew C. Greenberg" wrote:
> >
> > >> That is, we are both looking inwards to discussing purposes and
> > >> projects
> > >> to support "Squeak the artifact" as opposed to looking outwards to
> > >> purposes and projects to support "Squeak the community".  The two are
> > >> naturally related, but the choice of perspective might have
> a profound
> > >> influence on how we all think about the Squeak Foundation, as well as
> > >> how the Squeak Foundation carries out its operations and sets its
> > >> priorities.
> > >
> > > I would most certianly agree.  I think it is always better, perhaps
> > > infinitely better, to support the community rather than "just" the
> > > artifact that the community formed around.  The latter will come from
> > > the former.
> >
> > Excuse me, gentlemen, this is mere sophistry.  A seasoned advocate can
> > trivially make the contrary argument with equally compelling rhetorical
> > force.  But I'll spare you the demonstration, because to do so would be
> > mere demagoguery -- indeed, mere pabulum.
> >
> > The question is not "whether the artifact drives the community or the
> > community drives the artifact?"  Even to attempt an answer (using an
> > exclusive or)  is losing, for this is a fundamental principle of open
> > source communities and, to use your terms, their "artifacts:"
> >
> >         COMMUNITY AND ARTIFACT DEFINE ONE ANOTHER.
> >
> > Put another way, the community and artifact are not only "naturally
> > related," but are inherently intertwined.  At least for a viable
> > community.
>
> [snip]
>





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