[squeak-dev] 3.11 and the trunk

Randal L. Schwartz merlyn at stonehenge.com
Wed Aug 19 15:12:49 UTC 2009


>>>>> "Michael" == Michael Haupt <mhaupt at gmail.com> writes:

Michael> I don't want to start new trouble, but I have an urgent question now.
Michael> The decision that has, in part, caused the turmoil was a board
Michael> decision, if I recall that correctly. If so, how could the board as a
Michael> whole have misinterpreted the 3.11 efforts - was there not enough
Michael> discussion?

[Donning my board member hat...]

To put it simply, it started with a misunderstanding on my part.

I had seen all of the tools being generated by Keith as "means to an end"... a
new better process for generating 3.11 or 4.0 or whatever else we were aiming
for.  What I had missed, despite repeated attempts by Keith to tell me (as I
can now see in retrospect), was that an *actual* new *official* image wasn't
really his personal goal. I think I was confused by it having been called
3.11: I was expecting a 3.11 release "some day".

So, when it came up in the board meeting recently that while we were waiting
for 4.0 to get done (the licensing release), we were losing a way to get
people contributing, and had been for quite some time.  4.0 was getting
delayed week-by-week, and there hadn't been a new "core" release in over a
year.  The success of the Pharo fork proved to us that the core of squeak was
stalled.  So it was time for a reboot... get people back on.

When Andreas proposed the new trunk using existing tools, it looked like a way
to at least capture the interim desire-to-contribute, realizing that any
patches applied to 3.10.2 would have to be reharvested for 4.1 after 4.0 was
generated.  But at least we had something we could bring to squeak-dev.

There was *never* any intent to discount what Keith had accomplished. But at
the end of the day, what mattered was people in squeak-dev being told how to
help, and having a way to help, and that wasn't happening. Part of this was
because the tools weren't ready for prime time yet...Keith told me a few days
ago that he still needs another month or two.  Part of this was because of
something I wasn't aware of until recently... Keith hadn't been permitted to
speak on squeak-dev directly because of some work issues.

There's a lot of monday-morning quarterbacking here.  We could have spent more
time to understand Keith's tools and goals.  We could have made it clear that
work on the trunk *will* need to be reharvested when we get to the 4.0 code
base, either using the same tools again, or using Keith's tools if they're
ready.

But the problem we were solving was the loss of interest in helping the squeak
core move forward.  And in that respect, despite some of the negative fallout,
I believe our overall goal has been met, and supported by recent activity.

Going forward, we (as a community) need to figure out if we're generating a
3.11 release from the trunk, or whether this trunk is now just a testbed for
good ideas for the 4.1 release.  Part of this depends on the 4.0 release
timing, and that depends on the release team.  I'm working with Matthew now to
figure out what resources are needed for that.

I'd also like to get this work back into the hands of the teams.  The board
stepped in to solve the problem that didn't appear to be solving itself.  But
ultimately, it's the release team(s) who should be driving this.

-- 
Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095
<merlyn at stonehenge.com> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/>
Smalltalk/Perl/Unix consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc.
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