[Squeakfoundation]Squeak mailing list update

[Cees de Groot]

Just in case you missed it in the flood of Squeak mailing list messages, 
here's what I just sent to that list re the status of SqF:

--- 8< -----
From: cg@cdegroot.com (Cees de Groot)
Subject: Squeak Foundation news
Date: 11 May 2001 23:26:43 +0200
Message-ID: <9dhkmv$t5a$1@home.cdegroot.com>

The squeakfoundation list was a bit quiet this week, so progress was
not as good as some hoped for. One reason might be that people have the
wrong ideas about SqF - rumours are that some of you think we're an evil
bunch trying to fork Squeak into something Stable and drive it down the
wrongly coloured plane.

The best clarification is the current Statement of Purpose for SqF:

 To assist in the evolution of Squeak into its ultimate expression as
 an exquisite personal and collaborative computing environment that is
 open, well supported, and freely available across the great majority
 of modern platforms and operating systems.

Which, by intention, is very broad and basically says "we want to do
anything that we think is good for Squeak". Tim already volunteered
to dress up as Mickey Mouse, earning some hard-needed cash for the
Foundation ;-) (actually he volunteered to be Evil President, for Life,
I'm just trying to protect his reputation).

What may not have helped either in involving you is my announcement
that the next bit, "define a set of Principles", might actually involve
work. Well, it turns out that this work may be fun and shed some light
on what SqF will be about - when I tried to draw up an initial set
of principles by copying the ones from the Northern Atlantic Marine
Association, a club of fishermen, ecologists, and whatnot that tries
to balance protection and exploitation of a common good, it turned out
that what NAMA wants with their chunk of ocean is quite close to what
SqF could want with a chunk of open source code. Both are, in a sense,
ecosystems and a common/public good.

So defining principles might turn out to be something interesting and
stimulating after all. Quick - join the Squeak Foundation mailing list
before you miss out the good bits!

http://www.squeakfoundation.org/ has all the details.



-- 
Cees de Groot               http://www.cdegroot.com     <cg@cdegroot.com>
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