Hi Stephan and all!

(Also read my other posts in this thread btw)

Stephan B. Wessels <swessels at cox.net> wrote:
[SNIP of lots of problems described that we actually think can be helped
by this]
> - frustrated with an appearance of an "in crowd" that decides where 
> the group as a whole focuses (although I do not applaud committee based 
> design)

I don't see this "in crowd". I really would like to get a handle on what
you mean by that.

> However, I do not grasp how this activity furthers any real growth in=20
> Squeak.
> 
> I'll keep an open mind but my first reaction is to speak up and say=20
> "wait a second".  Help me to understand better why this is good thing.

Ok, this is not an exhaustive explanation by any means, but anyway -
keep asking:

What we feel has been an increasing problem in the Squeak community is
the paralyzation of having no decision body. I don't know if those words
mean exactly what I mean (I am no english native) but anyway - the
Squeak community has lots of ideas on how to evolve but for most of the
time the discussions end up in endless debate and noone feels the
responsibility of actually making a decision. Eventually people just get
annoyed and either drops it or goes ahead and just does something about
it.

Most of the time the things are just dropped and frustration builds and
builds to the point of people actually dropping out (as you described).

Now - the above feeling is shared by a LOT of people in this community.
In fact, the whole SqF formation process going on is driven by this very
problem. We need a better organization. We need a process for decisions.
We need people taking responsibility to get things done (not *do* them,
but make sure they get *done*).

So why did we step forward and why didn't we wait for SqF to deal with
it? There are multiple reasons:

- The SqF formation involves quite a few people. It will take some time.
During that time we still have no decision body.
- The SqF formation may actually fail (god forbid), it has failed before
(stalled) and can fail again. Then we end up with nothing. Now we have
*something*.
- The actual SqF formation process itself benefits from us having a
decisive body already in place that can help pave the way. Currently it
is finding its own process, but we are here to act and help it as best
we can.

And let me finish by saying that we do NOT intend to sit in this group
for more than perhaps 6-12 months. We don't have the stamina. But we are
*giving* you our time and effort for this interim period. It is
something good. And then, if SqF fails or not - perhaps *you* can step
up to the plate and take over - no, I am not kidding.

Anyone that knows how much work we have put into this community and will
keep on putting in ought to understand that we are doing this for all of
us.

- Doug has been slaving on that update stream master position for years.
He is helping ALL of us a LOT. And that work is just pure pains.

- Cees has been hosting and managing a lot of our Internet services, and
that is a LOT of work. And he has set up our new cooperatively owned and
managed server.

- Marcus needs no presentation, everyone should be aware of how much
work he has been putting into harvesting and more or less on his own
holding that process up under its armpits. To the extent he got almost
burned out by it.

- Michael also needs no presentation.

Well, ok, enough for this post. Keep asking.

regards, Göran