"Internal" updates (was: RE: [Squeakfoundation]Possible extra text

[goran.hultgren@bluefish.se]

cg@cdegroot.com (Cees de Groot) wrote:
> Doug Way <dway@riskmetrics.com> said:
> >(By the way, Scott just posted the various "fixes before 3.4gamma" updates to the internal update stream today.)
> >
> I don't know what this internal update stream thingy is or who's output port
> you have to kiss in order to get access to it, but I think (exactly for these
> reasons) that it should go.

:-) I agree Cees but a simple explanation might be in order here - it is
a remnant that we decided to keep until 3.4 is out the door just because
we (or at least I) didn't want to start banging on something and thus
disrupting the "quick" release of 3.4. Since Scott is doing most of the
legwork currently it was easy to let him continue his work as he is used
to.

But we all agree that there should be no "secret" privileged place for
updates of course.

> A much better alternative would be to have a marker file on the regular update
> stream indicate the latest 'safe' update (for some value of safe). Cool
> bl33ding edge hackers could ignore the marker, while regular users (using
> 'Update from server') would have their updates stop at the number indicated in
> the marker file.
> 
> Then everyone could decide for themselves how bleeding edge they'd like to be,
> and how much they want to contribute to pre-alpha testing.
> 
> The absolutely most vital thing if Squeak's to be a success under the new
> model of governance is to make it as transparent as possible. No hidden areas
> for some 'privileged' people, the only privileges we should hand out is
> decision privileges, not information privileges.

Again I wholeheartedly agree and this is one of the things I really
tried to push in the mission statement. That is also one of the reasons
we keep all discussions on this list and not off list. Consider this a
remnant that will go away very soon.

I think a focused effort to bring about the new Harvesting tool would be
the best way to proceed. Hacking the update mechanism just seems like a
"hack" that will not give us anything really. We are just about (any
day) to open 3.5alpha and IMHO alpha means on the bl33ding goddamn
hold-on-it's-gonna-blow edge and when we have that stream open I think
we can simply ditch the "secret" internal stream and then just get the
new tool out the door before we try to turn 3.5 into beta (at which
point such a tool will be much more needed).

Please guys, lets use the new alpha stream as ALPHA is meant to - push
stuff into it and let the ALPHA-testers take the hit. We need to let
FIXes go into it with much less scrutiny in order to keep up. IMHO, the
only scrutiny we really need to do is to verify that it is indeed FIXes
and not additions to the bloating image.

regards, Göran