On Wed, 16 Feb 2005 00:38:10 -0700, Brian Brown <rbb at techgame.net> wrote:
> Hmm, I was under the impression that SqC turned it over to what became  
> the Guides right around when I was introduced to Squeak.
>
Well, turning over isn't the right word. It used to be that SqC was the  
Keeper Of The Image, and it was mostly decided there what went in and what  
not, in the 'benevolent dictatorship' model we all love and cherish ;).  
SqC basically stepped down from that role, and 'the community' took over.

The Guides were just that. Guides - advisors, helpers, whatever. Not  
leaders, decision makers.

The idea then was to replace the 'authority' of SqC by the 'authority' of  
SqF - some sort of central, neutral, more-or-less democratic institution  
that could also raise funds and thereby help in organizing the community.  
However, SqF is not there yet, and in the meantime there's no decision  
making process apart from consensus (which usually results in good  
decisions where it is easy and poor compromises where it is hard).  
Frustration levels are rising, and the community is in serious danger of  
fragmentation - lots of people have found it so hard to keep up with the  
community that they have decided to just do their work, publish the code,  
and generally not start politicizing about whether their code will ever be  
folded back into the main stream. Which effectively means that people -  
important, valuable people - are leaving the community, Squeak is forking,  
etcetera.

Which, I think we all agree there, is very, very bad.

That's what our 'power grab' - I call it a rather desparate call for  
action ;) - came from. It's legitimized if the community agrees with our  
analysis of the situation and decides to cut us some slack to see whether  
our efforts make a difference in terms of lowering frustration levels and  
keeping everything together until we do have a SqF in place.