[ANN][IMPORTANT] New leadership formed!

Kamil Kukura kamk at volny.cz
Wed Feb 16 10:35:23 UTC 2005


Lex Spoon napsal(a):
> 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.

[SqueakLegitimate class comment]

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

Great, I would like to hear anyone from Squeak Central. Just to mention 
that www.squeakcentral.org points to SqueakLand - site dedicated 
exclusively to youth education. A link there to "Deep Squeak" goes to 
www.squeak.org, a site with latest comments that are [Year current - 
(Year year: 2000) / 365.25] years old. A link to download version 3.7 is 
only thing that makes it like it's not completely obsolete.
Other info on Squeak Central goes to: 
http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/797 where it reads: "Squeak Central 
no longer has the role that it once did. The Squeak community has 
organized itself around The Guides, The Harvesters, Squeak Janitors". 
And then goes list of projects you just count how many are current and 
how many obsoleted/abandoned.

> 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.

I also don't agree how this leading group has been formed. There was no 
election process yet (if I'm not wrong). For example, I think Goran 
Krampe did overwhelming contribution to the community, but Michael 
Rueger has three marginal posts to squeak-dev for last month. It 
confuses me little bit. But still again, I am happy somebody at least 
expressed their will to devote to leadership. Should we accept it, is 
question of us who are in more or less in touch with Sqeuak. Or am I wrong?

> 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.

Squeak Central is missing activity, Squeak Foundation is at least trying 
to make Squeak live well and general community are self-centric people 
who are willing to contribute if it will make sense for them. But 
definetely not in sense everyone works on everything. Without 
distribution of labour we are primitive society.

> 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.

So there is no crisis?! Then it's time to stand up from your playground, 
opening eyes and starting looking arround. Windows are everywhere in 
spite that you can't do almost nothing with them. Java things eat your 
machine completely and still it empowers a lot of business computing 
environments. How many web sites are running PHP and how many are on 
Squeak? We can sing hymn how Morphic is superior to any other graphical 
environment, but when it comes to real things people are turning to 
wxWindows (yes, a C++ framework!) in order to have buttons, dialog 
windows and so on. Still se no crises?! Hell, I'm talking about reality. 
If you are constructer and project the bridge, you just don't say "oh 
shit, it collapsed, I just forgot..."; they just arrest you and put ya 
in jail. Sorry, this is how life works! You want more developers? Then 
be serious!

> 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....

How many Linux distros are out there. And still everybody talks about 
Linux. Java is divided into SE, EE, ME and still it is Java. Some level 
of division might be vital. So far we went to point, or at least I see 
it that way, where we agree on packaging, but read below.

> 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.

Take over from who? Just point to current leaders. Cry loud as some 
group wants to start revolution. Perhaps we save... er.. what? That 
image almost nobody cares about what's in? Or squeak.org in current 
state? Well, thank you.

> 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.

Packaging is great thing though I still don't see how does it solve the 
question of future. There's package Speech and still Speech is integral 
part of image. And I bet it still will be in [2010 + 50 atRandom]. So 
what next?

I whish we would have result of following poll:

Further mainstream/major/general/i-dont-what development should be 
directed to:

    a) integrating bugfixes and enhancements as so far
    c) packaging and removing stuff from image we have
    b) starting from brand-new (generation next) image

And even if we will have the result, just tell me, WHO will make 
decision. Just say those names that will take responsibility for "ok we 
are going to take these steps. Next appointment is at <put date/time 
here>, hope to see you all and well."


Respect!

-- 
Kamil Kukura



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