Hi all,
I was waiting to get some emails from Dan but I cannot wait anymore. Sorry Dan this is personal but I would like to see things moving a bit faster.
Last September Dave Thomas started to collect money for financing Squeak Foundation. He contacted Dan and me because he was looking for a money host that would not cost too much. So he contacted AITO the organizing commitee of ECOOP and they agree that Squeak Foundation could use their accounting.
Then Dave contacted me and Dan to let us know and he got no reply since then. I added the emails at the end of this one. I do not know if this is wise but I'm fed up to wait.
So can the squeakfoundation react because there is really something to do.
For me having a better process for the release and the gathering of change and improvements would be a real goal for the squeak foundation (beside promoting squeak) because Squeak is open source with a really tiny open because eveyrthing has to pass in the hand of SqueakCentral which is good but also bad worth SqC like for nonSqC. So working on the module extension would be a really important task of Squeak foundation.
Stef
Here are the emails:
December email
Hi Stephane,
Per the last email you had from me on the subject (Sept) AITO has agreed to manage the funds. I have not heard back from Dan on the email. I'm willing to help, but feel that there needs to be more energy and interest on the part of Squeak itself.
Best Wishes For 2002,
Dave
Stephane Ducasse wrote:
Hi Dave and Dan
I would like to know what is the status of the Squeak foundation? Dave you mentioned to me that you collected money and were looking for a place to pay squeakers So what is the current status
Stef
First september email
I'm pleased to support that AITO, the non-profit company which sponsors ECOOP and other events has made a strong vote in favor of managing an account for this purpose. While I don't expect the amount of funding to be large (10-30K) would be my expectation, but potentially bigger if we get some spin and personal, family, group and corporate memberships like PBS TV in US<grin>. Need to have coffee mugs, shirts, CDs etc.
I'm trying to encourage them to find a way of accepting credit cards. I can always do it here in Canada if needed and pass through to AITO. We also lack any mechanism to issue tax receipts. But something is better than nothing and it will cost nothing to get up and going and rest with a trusted body.
In order to "open the doors" I AITO needs to have a simple mission statement which passes the test of the non-profit goals of AITO and a simple process for allocating the funds. I
Please take a look at my previous suggestions and provide me with some words.
I'll be speaking at Net.Object Days next week as will Alan for it would be nice to announce the fund or at least pre announce. I'm prepared to put in $10K to start the process off and would be happy to do the PR thing next week with Alan if we can<g>
Regards, Dave
While I appreciate Stephane's (and a few others) passion and frustration his recent post may easily be taken out of context. So I would like to provide some clarifying comments.
1. For some time (XP2000, ECOOP 2000, OOPSLA 2000, Smalltalk Solutions 2001, EOOOP 2001...) and myself and others have advocated for a Squeak Foundation (sometimes called SqF) in the spirit of Apache and other open source efforts. Such foundations are non-profit companies run by a meritocracy. Having a company provides a place where both individuals and corporations can make contributions of money, code, people etc. While Apache is rich relative to some consortium my expectation is that SqF would have $30K -300K per year to support Squeak.
2. Dan and Alan have been very supportive for this idea from the outset, indeed the much appreciated efforts of the StableSqueak team were a side effect of these discussions at XP2000 etc. We made some initial progress in the Spring 2001 following Smalltalk Solutions after some interest was stirred by my provocative <grin> "Ask Not What Squeak Can Do For You, But What You Can Do For Squeak" talk. This list was in fact initiated at this time. Many to he consider having an outstanding head of the meritocracy a critical success factor. In such discussions Dan has been promoted as SqF's Linus <grin>. Dan agreed he would consider this role.
3. Unfortunately soon after that the Squeak team (SqC) left from Disney looking for a new organizational setting in which they could continue with their important research. During that time Dan initiated in the important work on Modules while concurrently working on the next release of Squeak etc. There are only so many things Dan et al can do, and we all want him doing those not wasting his valuable time on administriva.
4. In August in response to the availability of some very talented Smalltalk resources due to the economy I approached AITO, which is the non-profit company that runs ECOOP with a request to host an account for SqF contributions. AITO held a special vote and very quickly approved agreed to host the account and to dispense the funds on the basis of recommendations of a committee consisting of a Dan, Stephan (representing ESUG) and some AITO board members (where there are many Squeak supporters including myself). Dan and I talked briefly at OOPSLA 2001 in October and apologized for not getting back to me to confirm his participation.
Summary
Neither an SqF mailing list, nor an SqF bank account will make a foundation. SqF needs people who have skills, time, $ to contribute as well as leadership which shares the values of Squeak and has the respect, trust of the Squeak community. One needs to start with great dreams but modest expectations and build on success. It won't become Red Hat, Apache... nor Squeak Park <grin> a research center employing 50+ Squeakers over night and many would argue that either achievement would be a failure in another dimension. If SqF were only able to support students and sabbaticals for professional developers it would still be an important contribution.
Further the essence of a successful non-profit foundation is that people contribute to the cause and have no specific expectations. While the analog to Apache is useful, SqF needs to provide sufficient flexibility to "let the flowers" bloom. For those concerned with building on Squeak as an industrial platform it makes perfect sense to have a project AlwaysBehindReliableStableSqueak <grin> and for those building on Squeak as a laboratory or playground for ideas it makes sense to have a project AlwaysAheadUnstableSqueak <grin> with all shades in between including Squeak x.y for SqF.
End of Year Special Offer (Stephane you got to me <grin>)
Many people ask me how is SqF going, assuming that since I talked about it a couple of talks that I'm the driver. I'm NOT; I'm just a cheerleader and an grateful Smalltalker who has offered to help make the admisistriva happen iff Squeakers want SqF. So in order to bring closure on my effort I make the following offer. Good for 30 days, no refunds etc. Iff I receive sufficient personal requests from a representative population of Squeak contributors, and offers of assistance I will consider this a mandate to incorporate non profit SqF, organize an interim board etc. After which I will resign to download the fruits of there labor <grin>.
Best Wishes For the Holiday Season and 2002 Dave
Dave Thomas Bedarra Corp (Canada and Anguilla) Carleton University Canada University of Queensland Australia
DISCLAIMER - The above remarks represent my personal perspective and are provided in the sincere hope that the Squeak will continue to thrive and be healthy. While I have been guilty in part for many "sins" <grin> including ENVY/Developer, ENVY/Smalltalk Embedded. ENVY/Packager, ANSI ST, ST/Vmac, and IBM VisualAge Smalltalk, Java and MicroEdition my interest in Squeak are deeply personal and non commercial. Squeak is a valuable intellectual asset that needs to be protected and made available for future generations Squeakers. While I'm very sympathetic to those who want a production Squeak I personally am much more interested in seeing innovation. Of course I would love to be see all things happen but having lived in both research and commercial worlds I understand the tradeoffs.
dave@bedarra.com said:
Iff I receive sufficient personal requests from a representative population of Squeak contributors, and offers of assistance I will consider this a mandate to incorporate non profit SqF, organize an interim board etc. After which I will resign to download the fruits of there labor <grin>.
I think it'd be a good idea. I can't help from here (unless you don't mind SqF being a Dutch foundation ;-)), and I think it is important to move forward on this.
Dave Thomas wrote...
While I appreciate Stephane's (and a few others) passion and frustration his recent post may easily be taken out of context. So I would like to provide some clarifying comments.
...and since this forms a nice coherent base, I'll try to respond within that context.
- For some time (XP2000, ECOOP 2000, OOPSLA 2000, Smalltalk Solutions
2001, EOOOP 2001...) and myself and others have advocated for a Squeak Foundation (sometimes called SqF) in the spirit of Apache and other open source efforts. Such foundations are non-profit companies run by a meritocracy. Having a company provides a place where both individuals and corporations can make contributions of money, code, people etc. While Apache is rich relative to some consortium my expectation is that SqF would have $30K -300K per year to support Squeak.
There's no doubt that this would be a good thing. I have tried to be supportive at every turn. I remember sending out a number of messages back in May trying to establish working charters for SqC and SqF to help in planning what projects might best be done by what groups, etc.
- Dan and Alan have been very supportive for this idea from the outset,
indeed the much appreciated efforts of the StableSqueak team were a side effect of these discussions at XP2000 etc. We made some initial progress in the Spring 2001 following Smalltalk Solutions after some interest was stirred by my provocative <grin> "Ask Not What Squeak Can Do For You, But What You Can Do For Squeak" talk. This list was in fact initiated at this time. Many to he consider having an outstanding head of the meritocracy a critical success factor. In such discussions Dan has been promoted as SqF's Linus <grin>. Dan agreed he would consider this role.
And this is still true. I don't think I'm the best person for the long term but, to the extent that I can provide continuity, and maybe some credibility, I'd be happy to do this to get things going.
- Unfortunately soon after that the Squeak team (SqC) left from Disney
looking for a new organizational setting in which they could continue with their important research. During that time Dan initiated in the important work on Modules while concurrently working on the next release of Squeak etc. There are only so many things Dan et al can do, and we all want him doing those not wasting his valuable time on administriva.
In truth the problem wasn't one of inadequate cycles on my part for, if it had been, I would have called for help. The real problem for me was one of organizational uncertainty. Without knowing who would be SqC's next patron, I had no foundation to plan my role and set of commitments for Squeak the Vehicle. At least that is how it affected me. If I had stepped back at that time I probably could have taken this all into account and still supported forward motion in the formation of SqF.
- In August in response to the availability of some very talented
Smalltalk resources due to the economy I approached AITO, which is the non-profit company that runs ECOOP with a request to host an account for SqF contributions. AITO held a special vote and very quickly approved agreed to host the account and to dispense the funds on the basis of recommendations of a committee consisting of a Dan, Stephan (representing ESUG) and some AITO board members (where there are many Squeak supporters including myself). Dan and I talked briefly at OOPSLA 2001 in October and apologized for not getting back to me to confirm his participation.
My position, and that of SqC, about this is one of total support. I never meant to inhibit things through lack of a more active response.
Summary
Neither an SqF mailing list, nor an SqF bank account will make a foundation. SqF needs people who have skills, time, $ to contribute as well as leadership which shares the values of Squeak and has the respect, trust of the Squeak community. One needs to start with great dreams but modest expectations and build on success. It won't become Red Hat, Apache... nor Squeak Park <grin> a research center employing 50+ Squeakers over night and many would argue that either achievement would be a failure in another dimension. If SqF were only able to support students and sabbaticals for professional developers it would still be an important contribution.
Further the essence of a successful non-profit foundation is that people contribute to the cause and have no specific expectations. While the analog to Apache is useful, SqF needs to provide sufficient flexibility to "let the flowers" bloom. For those concerned with building on Squeak as an industrial platform it makes perfect sense to have a project AlwaysBehindReliableStableSqueak <grin> and for those building on Squeak as a laboratory or playground for ideas it makes sense to have a project AlwaysAheadUnstableSqueak <grin> with all shades in between including Squeak x.y for SqF.
I agree with all of this, as does all of SqC.
End of Year Special Offer (Stephane you got to me <grin>)
Many people ask me how is SqF going, assuming that since I talked about it a couple of talks that I'm the driver. I'm NOT; I'm just a cheerleader and an grateful Smalltalker who has offered to help make the admisistriva happen iff Squeakers want SqF. So in order to bring closure on my effort I make the following offer. Good for 30 days, no refunds etc. Iff I receive sufficient personal requests from a representative population of Squeak contributors, and offers of assistance I will consider this a mandate to incorporate non profit SqF, organize an interim board etc. After which I will resign to download the fruits of there labor <grin>.
Best Wishes For the Holiday Season and 2002 Dave
Dave, this is a wonderfully generous offer, and also a perfect complement to the current skill set available in SqC and the nascent SqF.
Here is what I will do in the short term to add momentum:
1. Today after some time with the kids, I'll send out a simple message to the big list to let them know that things are heating up on this front, in case any others want to subscribe to this list.
2. In the next day or two, I'll digest some of the messages from last May about charters for SqC and SqF, and produce a new draft of how energy might flow into various projects, based on these charters.
3. I'll check with Dave off-line about what he needs or wants most to see as this effort gets underway. Presumably in addition to a charter, we need to establish a set of roles and interim assignments to get a heartbeat going.
As I said in one of my messages back in May, I'm sure we can converge on a rigorous definition of SqF over time, but I also think we can come pretty close with an informal shot at it in the short term. Dave has cleverly mandated this by the term of his offer ;-).
- Dan
Dave Thomas wrote:
... So in order to bring closure on my effort I make the following offer. Good for 30 days, no refunds etc. Iff I receive sufficient personal requests from a representative population of Squeak contributors, and offers of assistance I will consider this a mandate to incorporate non profit SqF, organize an interim board etc. ...
I'm not sure how many personal requests you're looking for, but you can consider this as an additional request from me to incorporate a non-profit SqF, etc. :-)
I've done some work to help organize the "Harvesters" fixes-review group for Squeak (see http://swiki.squeakfoundation.org/squeakfoundation/45 ), as a "Squeak Foundation" project, although the foundation doesn't really exist yet as a formal entity.
I guess you could also consider this an offer of assistance, in the sense that I would be happy to continue this work under a more formal Squeak Foundation.
- Doug Way dway@riskmetrics.com
squeakfoundation@lists.squeakfoundation.org