>
> I was trying to guide the discussion back to Matthews proposal which I
> agree with. I'm not suggesting they should adopt any image.


You misunderstand, I was agreeing with you, the comment about what was
absurd wasn't in reply to you but to the previous suggestion that all these
different forks could be convinced to come back to a core image; just isn't
going to happen.


> I think getting the various communities to buy in and commit to a vision of
> shared core packages should be the responsibility of the board. It should be
> in each communities interest to work on such an activity. This is where the
> real work will need to be done.


Again, I was agreeing with that position.

 Andreas is the only person I've seen proposing anything at all pragmatic
>> for the board to do.  SNIP
>>
>
> What isn't pragmatic about Matthew's proposal? I don't think he suggests
>  that the board does this themselves - maybe I misunderstood.


I like his proposal, that doesn't make it pragmatic, at least, not as
pragmatic as what Andreas is always saying, harvest what's done, rather than
making big plans for doing stuff that the past has shown rarely works out.

One of Squeaks big problems, IMHO, is that every version is planned and
realised by someone grand idea of features that should be in the next
version.  More often than not, this is vaporware, work someone wants to do,
or thinks can be done, but isn't done, so everyone waits and waits and waits
for a new version.

I'd much rather see releases done by specific dates, like a release every 6
months, each release harvesting the latest fixes and patches of accomplished
work.  Make it easier to get new stuff integrated into the core by releasing
regularly and often rather than these pie in the sky visions of what might
be.  Guaranteed steady gradual evolution and continual progress beats the
hell out of revolutionary grand changes that might or might not actually
happen.


> I don't think the board should be following and picking. I don't think that
> works. The sub communities should be playing an active role in this and I
> think it should be the boards responsibility to:
>
>  - Convince each community that it's worth doing
>  - Find out and agree what needs to be done
>  - Enable each community to work
>      - Remove barriers
>      - Define processes
>      - Resources: tools, email lists, servers, etc
>  - Manage the overall progress and lend support where necessary
>
> - Zulq


Which is what they've been doing, it's not been working so well.  The Squeak
community wouldn't be splintered into so many fragments otherwise.  The
Pharo guys forked because it's the only way to get anything done, it takes
too long to try and get anything real done in the core Squeak, progress is
glacial, so everyone forks.

Keith and Matthew are right, focus on packages and tools for sharing code,
Andreas is right, focus on what's done, integrate it, make progress, stop
the pie in the sky dreams of the ultimate system, or core kernel image, or
whatever other pipe dream people keep chasing that clearly isn't being used
by all the sub communities anyway.

I don't care what image I use, I care what packages I use.  I care that my
Collections package is the latest and greatest, or that my Seaside package
is up to date, or that I'm using the newest FFI, or the right Polymorph.  I
don't care about eToys or Graphics or 3D or anything to do with educating
kids.  Packages are more important than images.  The only thing I want from
an image is that it isn't bloated with a bunch of unloadable code like eToys
that infects everything and breaks everything when you try and remove it.

Elliot is right about building images from scripts as well, I want to
automate the builds of the images I use with a script to load onto a base
image just the packages I want.  Damien does this now with his dev images, a
good starting point for me, then I use a script and Keiths installer to
further load and customize it to my liking.

Anyway, now I'm just rambling, so I'll leave it at that.  +1 for tools,
Packages, and integrate what's done and get it out.

Ramon Leon
http://onsmalltalk.com
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