On 05.11.2009, at 00:25, John M McIntosh wrote:

>
> On 2009-11-04, at 2:01 PM, alesch wrote:
>
>>
>> Hi List:
>>
>> Does anyone know why Sophie is being ported to Java?
>> In  http://sophie2.org/trac/wiki/AboutPage this page , they mention  
>> Astea
>> Solutions and their contributed Java codebase...
>
> You'll find questions and reasons via
> http://ask.slashdot.org/story/08/10/03/1547256/How-To-Kill-an-Open-Source-Project-With-New-Funding?art_pos=1

In particular, from

http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=984735&cid=25252253

"Unfortunately, despite a lot of interest among individual faculty and  
a few small programs, the widespread institutional adoption necessary  
to form a viable Sophie 1.0 sustaining community was not happening -  
due in large part, our inquiries suggested, to lack of interest in  
supporting an enterprise software application written in Squeak. In  
the community whose support was most essential to Sophie's survival,  
everyone wanted a language that was more widely known and used; the  
largest single group of potential adopters wanted Java [...] The  
Squeak contractors were understandably unhappy about the move to Java,  
both because they lost the contract and because they believe in Squeak  
and want to see it used more widely. We have the greatest respect for  
their capabilities and their enthusiasm for their community, but our  
responsibilities to our own institutions, our community, and Mellon  
require us to give Sophie the greatest possible chance of success."


- Bert -