Hello Lex,

Lex Spoon wrote:
> Chris Muller <afunkyobject at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
>>>My own experience with squeak is that it only needs a decient
>>>web-browser and a usable word-processor as well as a few layout fixups
>>>to be ready for prime-time... 
>>
>>I think the path to commercial success with Squeak on the large-scale you are
>>thinking is to use Squeak to lead, not follow.  Attempting to imitate
>>"web-browsing" and "word-processing" with Squeak would be a public-relations
>>"death" for Squeak.  How would you possibly sell it? 
> 
> There are plenty of things.  Coolness alone will sell you a bunch of
> them.  Squeak makes *great* demos.  How cool that everything is sitting
> on your desktop waiting for you to mess with it?  You don't have to
> double click and wait for applications to load.  Your data is just
> *there*, ready to be moved around, edited, viewed, or tossed across the
> network.

Preach it brother Lex.

Nice thing is we don't have to go for world domination.
If we had a good enough system that enough people would buy that would 
support ??? number of full-time Squeakers that would be fantastic.

How many Squeakers here on this list would love to work for such a 
setup, either full time or consulting? Tim, Craig, Todd, John Mc, ...

We could have some happily employed Squeakers rather than Squeakers 
seeking employment.

> And if you are a power user, you're even happier.  If you like Visual
> Basic or AppleScript then you'll go nuts with Morphic.

Woohoo!

> I don't see why everyone is so down on the thought.  OS/2 and BeOS had
> plenty good followings during their time, and they were relatively
> imitative.  As a closer example, the Lisp Machine still has rabid
> followers today.  To do a SqueakOS seems to only take time and a
> willingness to pursue success instead of just mess around.  It's a big
> project, but it's not ridiculously big compared to the kind of efforts
> floating around these days.  Imagine 10% of Netscape in its prime. 
> Imagine 1% of go.com.

I am definitely not down on the thought. To me it is one of the most 
exciting thoughts in computers. A living OS which anybody who wants to 
put in a little effort can master a portion of commensurate with their 
effort.

Its like all the Apple naysayers. They'll never beat Microsoft. Their 
just a niche market. ...

Come on now. Wake up. I would happily take the keys to that "niche 
market" and enjoy the ride. But I don't think Steve is giving them away. :)

That "niche" market is bigger than what 90% of any other individual 
business?

We could happily exist in a niche. Those who don't have or share the 
vision. Oh well, that won't enjoy the fruits.


> Dan Ingalls put it best back in the famous Byte article:
> 
> 	"An operating system is a collection of things that don't fit into a
> language. There shouldn't be one."

I like that.

> I'm tired of being left to wallow around in sub-standard OS's.  I put
> what time I can into moving Squeak towards being an OS of its own, and I
> think it will get there over some number of years, but a commercial
> effort is a fine way to go and would speed things up.

Yup!

I agree that we can start on top of a small Linux foundation.
If we could develop a minimal Linux hardware abstraction layer 
distribution upon which SqueakOS would sit, that would be a nice start.

If we started with addressing fundamentals, foundations we would do 
well. We don't need or require all the extraneous and superfluous 
feature of browsers or word processors.

I like Cees' suggestion regarding web browser.

OpenOffice.org will help fight the battle on the word processor segment. 
If Squeak had a nice subset of features which did a high percent of what 
people need and could "Save as" or "export" to OpenOffice.org's 
XML/zipped format, we would have a big win for our community.

OOo could move people from Word/Office and we could move our niche to 
Squeak. :)

Squeak is very enabling. If we hang in there and keep on keepin' on then 
we can prosper and do very, very well. As we gain momentum and 
developers then more and more is within our reach.

The world is ours, they just don't know it yet.

And that statement at the top about not going for world domination.
Forget it.  I was wrong. :)
Let's do it.

Jimmie Houchin