On Tuesday, May 6, 2003, at 09:21  AM, Andreas Raab wrote:

> Daniel,
>
>> Linux is a platform.
> [...]
>> Squeak is a platform too.
>
> Ah, now we're slowly getting to the heart of the matter. Which is: What
> _kind_ of platform are we talking about? If we take Linux for example, 
> being
> an operating system it doesn't make a lot of sense to ship it without 
> file
> system support, does it?

Well if you want to run down that road.  The cool thing about linux vs, 
say, windows, is its configurabilty.  You get your basic linux that has 
a bunch of stuff in it, but you can issue a few commands and strip it 
to be a dedicated dns or mail server, or you can bulk it up and use it 
as a personal 3d workstation with lots of doodads.  You have a range of 
configurations.

What the seaside/wiki/server guys would like is the ability to push a 
button and strip the UI so its just a nifty server.
What the embedded/hand held guys want is a tiny thing with basic UI.
What the developers want is everything under the sun (for awhile 
anyhow).
The etoys people want the universe.

I think the focus on making things loadable/unloadable is really good 
and should continue.
I also think the next SM with configurations will be good.  Because 
then maybe we can just say something like 'Smalltalk configureAsServer' 
and Bob's your uncle.

I would probably ship as a default image something very rich to 
encourage experimentation with newbies though.

So perhaps we should begin to gather a list of frequently desired 
configurations and work on ways to easily reconfigure an image - which 
I think is where the SM/removal scripts/refactoring stuff is going.  
But I don't think the end game is well defined.

-Todd Blanchard