[ANN][IMPORTANT] New leadership formed!

Lex Spoon lex at cc.gatech.edu
Tue Feb 15 22:15:45 UTC 2005


This coup is illegitimate.  I hope that the Squeak community does not
fall for this power grab, and that they remember this incident well. 
This power is neither legitimate nor a good idea.

If there is a Squeak reorganization, we should hear about it from Squeak
Central itself.  That has not happened.

This comment about Squeak Foundation supporting them is flatly wrong. 
The new Squeak Foundation does not even exist yet--there is only a
mailing list discussing the formation of such a thing.  The only way
such a fledgeling proto-organization could support such a group, is
through unanimous agreement of the members.  Not only is such agreement
lacking, but the idea was never circulated at all.  It wasn't even
discussed in general, much less was a specific list of names sent
around.

The proposed "in" list is not representative.  Where are the educators
and education researchers?  They are Squeak's raison d'etre.  And where
are the people representing *my* views on how Squeak should move
forward?  Am I supposed to send supplications to a private mailing list?
 Get real.  I have been hoping for a new Squeak organization to support
*more* Squeakers than merely squeak-dev.  This effort moves in the wrong
direction, and represents only a subset of squeak-dev, which is itself a
small subset of the Squeak community.


Overall, of the three tiers of support that a true leadership structure
of Squeak should have--Squeak Central, Squeak Foundation, and the
general community--this group has none.  It has no legitimacy except
outside its own claims.  They can say they are our commanders all they
like, but it will never make it so.


And what is the point of this power grab, anyway?  There is no crisis! 
The community has done well over the years by two approaches: put up
services that people can voluntarily use, and--when we have to agree on
something--discuss it on the mailing list until a rough concensus is
reached.  For examples of the first, witness the swiki, SqueakMap, BFAV,
SqueakPeople, and SqueakSource.  For examples of the second, consider
the harvesting process.  What excuse is there for someone in the group
to start bossing the rest of us around?  We don't need a tyrant,
temporary or otherwise.

The only plausible reason I can think of for this power grab -- and it's
regrettably ugly -- is that this is an attempt to sidestep annoying
people on squeak-dev who disagree with people on the designated list. 
Is this truly a good idea?  I actually think it is a good idea that, at
the few times we do need to agree on something as a community, that we
take our time and work on wide agreement.


Community members, if any of you go along with this, the result will be
massive fragmentation of what community we have left.  Already, external
groups have left the squeak-dev-led Squeak because they do not feel
represented.  Now we are seeing an effort to divide squeak-dev into
factions: those who follow the designated list, and those who (like me)
reject it.  If a large portion of the community does follow them, then
an even larger portion will fork off and make NetSqueak... then
FreeSqueak... then OpenSqueak....

We would end up like the Scheme community, with 100 different fiefdoms
all mildly incompatible, and all pathetically re-inventing the same
basic infrastructure.  That's a major waste of effort.  Let's work
together, and let's do what we think is right -- not what a self-styled
"leader" says we should do.  It is not too late for us to be a loosely
coupled comunity using a shared codebase.  We have already lost too many
people who have decided to fork at old versions of Squeak instead of
dealing with the current crowd.  Let's try and get some of those people
to come back, instead of forking even further.


Gentlemen on the "in" list:  Instead of spending those 6-7 days
discussing how best to make a power grab, I wish you had spent that time
working on a concrete proposal for a proper democratic organization.  I
have seen zero effort from you on that front.  Not one post to the
formation mailing list has proposed concrete details of an organization.
100% of your visible effort has been to attain personal power over the
Squeak community.  Please stop.  Put your energy into working out a
truly good community, instead of in this destructive direction.

Consider carefully that you are not going to take over "Squeak" even if
you try.  Even if it is called Squeak, you will have but a subset of the
population that you see now.  You will be kings of a small fiefdom, and
you will be reviled by all those who leave.  You could instead be a
mid-level leader of a thriving community, loved by those you are
helping.

Is there some issue that is frustrating you guys?  What is it that you
would like to see happening, exactly?  What do you think will not
happen, unless you someone gain the power to command us?

Everyone:  Let us keep moving forward as I proposed before.  Let us
thoroughly packagize Squeak, so that there are fewer central decisions
that have to be made at all. The more we can packagize, the more becomes
optional, and the more people can share efforts with the main group
instead of needing to fork off separately.  This seems to be going along
well, as far as I can see.

And let's proceed to *carefully* build a proper democratic organization,
for those few times that we must make group agreements.  I expect these
times to be few, because most action in Squeak happens in individual
sub-projects which will have their own structure.  For those few times
that we do need to make a decision, we should do it gently and
carefully.  Let's take our time and build a proper organization that
includes everyone.



Quite sincerely,

Lex Spoon



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