Hi all,

I will make one final attempt to explain matters as things have got taken
out of context in the lengthy discussion that arose from the original post.

First of all, a basic premise of mine: I think that all the current
activities which are visible to the majority of the Squeak community are
entirely appropriate. Regardless of whether it's KCP, MCP, SqueakMap or
whatever else, I think all of these activities are absolutely important.

However, they are not at all the only important things that are going on in
Squeakland. Of all the others, people hardly get feedback, people hardly
ever know if what they do is perceived to be important if that's a direction
into which Squeak should develop.

The guides (as a group) claim that their task is to coordinate the
community, not to make decisions. Yet, they have failed to coordinate the
community in a way that the community actually _can_ make decisions, _can_
do all the things that are needed and that the guides claim they don't want
to do.

Example: As I (and several others) think, the TTF stuff is about the best
since the invention of sliced bread in Squeak. I want it to be part of the
"out of the box" experience of what Squeak is. How can I make it so? I
can't. There is no decision process in place, there is nothing I can do
_except_ trying to convince the guides and therefore the guides _do_ make
the decision about it. [Note: This is an example so don't respond to the TTF
stuff exclusively; the same can be said about many other packages]

And whoever is making these decisions is setting a strategy for the future
of Squeak. Deny it as long as you want, but if the guides make the de-facto
decisions they also make the de-facto strategy. And it is that strategy that
drives me mad - uniquely focused on "hacking Squeak into bits" (boy, am I
glad _I_ haven't said that ;-) and by doing so, effectively ignoring every
other part of the system.

I think that's the basic problem here. The guides seeing themselves in a
role which does not match the "daily facts". Add to this the
infrastructure/communication problems and you end up in a situation where
both sides suffer. The guides, because they feel blamed for things that they
deliberately say they don't want no control over, the rest of the community
because the guides do de facto what they say they don't.

I don't think this situation can last very long.

Cheers,
  - Andreas