Hello Diego,

I wish to add my voice to the many who have expressed similar sentiments.

diegogomezdeck at consultar.com wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I think we're really near to find *the* source of all these discussion we
> have periodically since SqC leaves Disney.
> 
> What we want with Squeak? Clearly there are 2 groups:
> 
>   - The "Media-Squeakers" (in Andreas's words)
>   - The "Traditional-Squeaker" (in my words)

To quote a popular series of commercials with Deion Sanders of the 
Dallas Cowboys, "both Boss". My apologies to those outside of the US who 
probably won't understand.

> I'll try to explain creating radicalized descriptions of these groups:
> 
> The Media-Squeakers believes in Squeak as the most promising incarnation of
> the Dynabook concept. These guys want TTF in the Image, Sound, Midi, PDF
> support, SVG readers/writers, Improved Look&Feel, Video support, etc and
> they are able to accept a big core image.
> 
> The Traditional-Squeakers are more interested in "normal" development with
> Squeak and they are interested in SOAP, Relational DB Access, CORBA, CVS
> support, cgi-type web servers, native-widgets, etc.  These guys want a
> really small core image with nothing more than stdio support.

As someone who really, really looks forward to the day that "his" (mine) 
abilities and Squeak's converge at a point he can use Squeak as his 
primary Operating Environment, I firmly want Both.

For my personal OE the Media Image. For my web app the small image.
I have apps I want to develop for both groups.

> If we don't agree with the goals difficulty we'll agree on methods.
> 
> We have to decide what we want with Squeak and accept that, probably, the
> goals of these groups are not the same.  Personally I think we have not
> enough resources to try to get all the goals of both groups.

The goals may be different, but not necessarily in conflict. The 
capability of the small kernel/image... does not imply an inability to 
deploy the Media Image on such a kernel/vm.

As to resources they seem reasonably available. Each group has their 
advocates and developers. As in all open source, you scratch the itch 
you have.

Many people will potentially be a user of one of your groups and a 
user/developer in the other.

Those in the traditional group as developers are not necessarily 
unwilling to be consumer users of the Media Squeak.

> In the SqC age the Media-Group was in charge and Squeak has excellent
> multimedia capabilities and absolute no support for "traditional"
> development.   In the Guides-Age these goals, imho, are not so clear.

We do have some challenges, we have our frustrating moments. But I think 
this community is up to the challenge.

Cheer up Diego, the sun is a shining. :)

Jimmie Houchin