On Friday, June 7, 2002, at 07:33 AM, Ricardo L. A. Bánffy wrote:

> I am sorry for the huge post, but several ideas were screaming to get 
> out.
>
> A Squeak Foundation could be a very smart move.

It's more than a very smart move. If I read the tea leaves correctly, 
SqF could
become a dire necessity in the not too distant future.

Dan Ingalls posted a message (Brainstormin') back around January 28, 
2002.
It contained three short, but very interesting, paragraphs as follows:

 >This could look like "why bother/still run by SqC", but our intention 
is, on the contrary
 >[and here's the one-minute answer to your original question...], to put 
SqF in charge
 >of the artifact and community, and for SqC to become "just another" 
participating group.
 >My significant presence in the interim structure is not to recreate the 
past, but to
 >ensure continuity while we move on to the future.

[snip]

 >This brings to mind a useful way to approach the whole question of what 
SqF is about
 >(charter) and how it ought to operate (process).  What if I, and all of 
SqC had to drop
 >out?  I don't mean just from SqF, but from Squeak in general, then 
where would we
 >(I'm speaking now as just a community member) be?
 >
 >I'm planning on sticking around but, almost by definition, if we can 
figure out how to
 >carry on without SqC, it would appear that SqF could achieve a fair 
amount of its most
 >important purpose, namely to carry on.

Thus, the handwriting is clearly on the wall. If I read the Viewpoints 
Research Institute's
web site correctly, Squeak is not their primary focus, but rather, only 
a means to support
their primary focus. This has important implications.

Essentially, Squeak only needs two more things to reach a state of 
completion or closure.
These are as follows: (1) block closures and (2) modules. The work on 
block closures is
apparently finished and is awaiting integration with the image. Modules 
are another
problem, but a workable solution does not appear to be too far off. 
True, all sorts of
Cool New Things could be added and arguments can be made for adding 
them. However,
the basic technology in Squeak has been pretty stable since Version 2.8.

The version 1.x series of releases built the basic system. The version 
2.x series of releases
ramped up the system. The version 3.x series of releases consolidates 
and completes the
system. I don't see a lot happening to Squeak proper after that unless 
there is a SqF to
carry the effort forward.

As I see it, there are essentially five steps to getting a SqF off the 
ground:

Step 1: Appoint, or shanghai, a new point man (aka Executive Director 
(Tim Rowledge?))
to replace Dan Ingalls, our current Interim Executive Director.

Step 2: Recruit, or shanghai, about a half dozen people to help the new 
Executive Director
and keep him/her honest.

Step 3: Adopt the charter and process that Dan Ingalls suggested in his 
1/28/02 post. We
have been informally doing this anyway and it's pretty straightforward. 
Use this charter and
process until something better can take its place.

Step 4: Designate a module repository that is open, public, and 
accessible. As I understand
it, Cees De Groot has basically already done this.

Step 5: Declare victory, get on with it, and have fun.

Can this be all that hard to accomplish?

Cheers, Roger.....

PS: To answer Dan's question concerning where we would be as a community 
if SqC
"dropped out": I believe that we would clearly be in serious trouble, 
given how we have
handled this whole SqF thing during the past year or so.