So, we (the smalltalk community) have at least half a dozen diferent
solutions to the Smalltalk portability problem.  Each solution was
built because the author saw the same need and did not see what they
felt was a suitable existing solution.

I would very much like to see the need for the OpenSkills portability
solution, Sport, to go away.  But when we move from Sport I would want
it to be a final move.  I don't want to spend my coding time moving
all my code to the latest and greatest portability stop-gap.  Sport is
fine for now so I don't need another intermediate solution.  What I
need is a widely agreed standard that will let me throw Sport away.

OK, so how do we get an agreed standard.  We all know the formal
process is long and painful, so what can we do instead?  I know, why
don't you all just use Sport? ... ah, right.  Well, lets all get
together when we can to work out how to handle the basics like files
and sockets.  Let's have a meeting every year at Smalltalk Solutions
and who knows, in 5 or ten years we may have something agreed.  We can
work out a cool process for handling contention and for managing the
evolution of the standard.

... but wait a minute, the standards bodies *already* provide a
framework for people to develop standards - do we want to re-invent
that wheel too?

The sooner we get the ANSI committee rolling again or start a new
committee under another standards body, the better.  If it takes 5
years so be it, but we need to start sometime  if we *ever* want to
see easily portable Smalltalk code.

BTW, and FWIW I think that the standardisation process should be an
on-going and not a goal-centric effort.  I think that as things are
agreed they should be released into the published standard with the
standard being released every two years or so.  In this way we can
fairly quickly get standards in place for the things which are easy
while not being shy about discussing the things which are not so easy.

Best regards,
    Bruce
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