> In Metacello you define versions of a project. For each version you specify the list of mcz files that make up the version and that list is qualified by platform.

Good.  Now, if only binary resources (files) could also be included in
the package then there would be a basis for Metacello to be a serve as
a medium of app delivery..

> So each version includes a specification of which platform versions are supported.

Ok, that's good, just one clarification though:  Are the declared
platforms just #squeak, #pharo and #gemstone or actually specific
releases of those platforms such as #squeak4dot4, #pharo1dot4,
#pharo2dot0, etc.?

The Platforms evolve just like the Packages and, as you know, bit-rot
is one of the issues we want the catalog to avoid.  That's why the
catalog is designed to remember the valid *combinations* of
(Platform-Release) + (App-Release).

> When you load version 3.0.7 of a project, you should get the same functionality without regard which platform you are using ....
>
> A configuration contains the entire version history for a project ... so 5 years from now, if you try to load version 3.0.7 into Squeak4.4 it will load correctly (assuming that version 3.0.7 works in Squeak4.4 today) ...

So it's a fixed-configuration, that's good.  The primary catalog
requirement is to tell the newbie:

   which versions of which software packages will work on my shiny
newly-installed Squeak 4.1?
   (or Squeak4.4, or whatever release of Squeak he's running).

I don't know whether Metacello can do that but that's why we can just
document it in an external catalog to know.

> Metacello is not magical. If developers don't maintain a configuration so that it works on all of the "supported" platforms then it will not work ... Maintenance activities for Squeak and Seaside has fallen off and the configuration for Squeak has degraded ...

This is confusing language for me..  When you say "the configuration
for Squeak has degraded" you just mean Squeak has advanced to 4.4 but
the Seaside configuration remained fixed for Squeak 4.3 (or 4.2
whichever), is that right?  IOW, a fixed-configuration will never
"degrade" in terms of a legacy release of Squeak, right?  Once 3.0.7
config works in Squeak 4.4, it will forever work in Squeak 4.4 --
that's what you said above.  I hope so right because that's what I
want.

> Tobias has picked up the ball and is getting Seaside running on the newer versions of Squeak and as he figures out the formula, he records the information in the configuration ... this is how Metacello is _supposed_ to work:
>
>   Developers with expertise on how things get loaded specify the dependencies
>   and load order in a configuration for others to use.

Great, so Tobias please let me know when it's ready to go one-click in
the catalog without needing those two orphan versions manually loaded
first.