[squeak-dev] Giovanni's (late) answers to the 2008 election
questions
Giovanni Corriga
giovanni at corriga.net
Sat Mar 1 00:19:52 UTC 2008
Hi all,
sorry for being so late, here are my answers to the 2008 election questions.
1. Approximately, how much time do you plan on spending on Squeak during
the coming year (in any kind of unit)?
I recently moved to London, so I still have to settle down properly. But
I think I'll be able to reserve at least 12-15 hours per week (maybe
split between workday evenings and weekend afternoons). This would be in
addition to the time I'd dedicate to the foundation in case I'll be
elected. I also plan to do a lot of Smalltalk advocacy (obviously using
Squeak as a prime example!).
2. What are in your mind the three most important issues (not
necessarily technical) we need to address in the coming year?
In my opinion, the Squeak community is currently lacking two things: a
clear vision of what Squeak should be and a proper development process
to turn this vision into reality. The foundation board shouldn't be the
one to provide such things, but instead it should be the catalyzer that
allows the community to reach such targets.
Aside from that, moving to a much smaller core system would be
beneficial, too (but we all know that).
3. What is your view on fund raising and how any such collected money
should be dealt with?
Fund raising should be done with a precise purpose in mind. Aside from
keeping enough to cover the costs for our infrastructure for at least
one more year, we should employ the money we have to make Squeak better.
Activities such as SummerTalk or a bounties would be good for Squeak,
too (witness what happened with the Curl plugin, just to make an example).
4. What is your view on the ongoing process of making SqueakFoundation a
not-for-profit legal entity?
I'm quite happy with how the current board has managed the process. The
next board such continue steadily on the same path.
5. Do you think the Team model is appropriate for organising our efforts
or should we come up with something else?
The team model has proven quite successful in cases such as box-admins,
webteam, news, etc. It needs to be improved for other kinds of teams,
such as the Squeak release team. Having the board requiring a higher
level of communication from such teams would probably be a good improvement.
6. Do you have any specific views on how the Squeak board and the Squeak
community should work together with the Squeak satellite communities
(Croquet, Seaside, Sophie, Squeakland, Scratch etc), also referred to as
"stakeholder communities"?
I think the various stakeholder communities have diverged so much that
they should be considered on par with the main Squeak community. Moving
to a system of relationships inspired by the Linux distros and how they
collaborate/compete with each other would be very good for everyone
involved.
7. The squeak.org release is our most important asset. How do you see it
evolving over the next few years?
I think it's time we start thinking about moving to a 4.x release
series. This would allow Squeak to do a giant leap, by dropping all the
unused stuff that has stockpiled inside the current image (as an
example, Environments) or solving some of the current shortcomings such
as the format of the CompiledMethods.
8. Do you have any thoughts on the current relicensing effort?
I wish it could go faster, but I'm not so naive that I don't realize how
complex this things are. I'm also quite happy with the fact that the new
licence can be understand by anyone in under minute.
9. How would you like Squeak to be positioned in the open source world
in year 2012?
I'd love to see Squeak be considered on the same level as other
languages such as Python, Ruby or Erlang.
10. What do you see as the overall role of the board?
The board should coordinate the Squeak community and should do what's
necessary to enable it to reach its targets.
11. What actions would you take to promote Squeak as an environment for
professional software development?
Advocacy and advertisements. Lots of people may be interested in Squeak,
and someone has to go, find them and convince them we're not on crack ;)
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