My reaction here has nothing to do with not wanting to see leadership.  
I think the delivery was dumb.  Leadership is having a clear vision and 
having people willing to come along.

I have a lot more respect for the model, that shows respect for the 
group as a whole, where you announce your intent and seek feedback.  
Not necessarily on what you will do as you guide or lead but on gaining 
support for your desire to lead.  My gut reaction is very negative to 
someone that announces they are in charge now, when I didn't even 
though there was someone seeking it.

Does that make sense?  I'm just saying what felt like an arbitrary 
unilateral action may have in fact been a great thing if you at least 
shared your intent before doing so.

The right thing now is for all of us to find a way to reconcile the 
issues and complaints that people have had (which I enumerated 
somewhat) and get this baby going forward with great efficiency.  
Better tools, better plans, better code!

  - Steve

On Feb 16, 2005, at 3:37 PM, Barry Bridgens wrote:

> Hi Castaways/Squeaders (whatever!),
>
> This is good news. The community needs a little leadership.
>
> Thanks for all your efforts, keep up the good work.
>
> Barry
>
> goran.krampe at bluefish.se wrote:
>
>> Hi fellow Squeakers!
>>
>> Pour yourself a cup of coffee, grab hold of your keyboard and read the
>> rest of this posting - even if it *is* long. Ok? :)
>>
>> 	"Are we rising again?" "No. On the contrary." "Are we descending?"
>> "Worse than that, captain!
>> 	we are falling!" "For Heaven's sake heave out the ballast!" "There! 
>> the
>> last sack is empty!"
>> 	"Does the balloon rise?" "No!" "I hear a noise like the dashing of
>> waves. The sea is below the
>> 	car! It cannot be more than 500 feet from us!" "Overboard with every
>> weight! . . .
>> 	everything!"
>>
>> Thus starts chapter 1, "Dropped from the clouds", of the book "The
>> Mysterious Island" by Jules Verne. The Mysterious Island follows the
>> adventures of a group of five castaways who use their survivalist 
>> savvy
>> to build a functional community on an uncharted, faraway, fantastic
>> island of bewildering goings-on.
>>
>> Our sacred balloon is also in trouble. We need to loose weight because
>> we are drowning in endless debates and non functional processes. We 
>> need
>> to get a good lightweight leadership in place. This island, the 
>> future,
>> is also full of wonders but still largely uncharted. Can we succeed in
>> building a functional community? Yes, we can. So, "dropped from the
>> clouds", we will try:
>>
>> The Castaways
>> -----------------
>>
>> The last six days there has been some off list activity in forming a 
>> new
>> leadership for Squeak. Yes, you read it right - the Guides are now
>> *officially retired*. From this point and forward there is a new
>> *temporary* group consisting of five castawa... eh people, that now
>> leads Squeak:
>>
>> 	- Göran Krampe
>> 	- Doug Way
>> 	- Cees de Groot
>> 	- Marcus Denker
>> 	- Michael Rueger
>>
>> This group reads squeak-dev of course, but is also reachable at:
>>
>> 	mysterious-island at discuss.squeakfoundation.org
>>
>> We are *leading* the Squeak community, not guiding. Well, that was the
>> summary, you have questions? That's odd. :) Read on.
>>
>>
>> Questions and Answers
>> --------------------------
>>
>> Q: How on earth did this happen? :)
>>
>> Well, very sudden. I (Göran) got a sudden urge/jolt/whatever six days
>> ago and just ran with the ball. This is NOT a reaction against the
>> current ongoing SqF formation (see below) - in fact - it is rather the
>> opposite.
>>
>> Q: How does this relate to the Squeakfoundation formation going on?
>>
>> First of all, only some of you know (not publicly announced yet, so I 
>> am
>> spilling the beans here) that there is a SqueakFoundation formation
>> process recently started. It aims to put a real foundation in place 
>> with
>> capacity of real funding etc and this work continues. A lot of people
>> are involved in that process and we have high hopes for it.
>>
>> Us five castaways are not leading that process, Stephane Ducasse and
>> Michael Rueger are (Michael is in our group too, but whatever). The 
>> idea
>> is that the castaways is temporarily in charge, *until* and *if* SqF
>> delivers a scheme for forming a new leadership. When and how that will
>> happen, we do not know.
>>
>> Also note that everyone in this group is actively participating in the
>> SqF formation. Finally, we think forming this leadership will help the
>> SqF formation a lot - because now there is a group leading that can 
>> take
>> decisions and implement suggestions, and pave the way forward.
>>
>> Q: Who gave you permission to do this "coup" you sneaky bastards!?
>>
>> Noone did, because before today there was no decisional body or forum
>> that could grant it to us! This is the first step - an interim group
>> that stands up, takes charge and leads. One important thing though - 
>> the
>> former Guides and Stephane Ducasse (leading the SqF formation process)
>> stands behind this new group and support us.
>>
>> We are also all dedicated to the community - and you who know who we 
>> are
>> can attest to that. This is NOT some "hostile takeover" of any kind. 
>> We
>> are doing this hoping for ALL your support and we expect to not let 
>> you
>> down. We are putting ourselves on the line here. We are taking on the
>> responsibility and hope we can deliver.
>>
>> Q: Why aren't the other three guides in the group?
>>
>> This is a group specifically focused on community decision-making,
>> building consensus etc. Ned, Craig and Tim (the former guides not in
>> this new group) are all top notch Squeak developers but they are quite
>> busy doing what they do best - cranking out cool code. And this group
>> both needs to be rejuvenated and to be small. Ned, Craig and Tim or
>> anyone else will get their chance of being in this group in the 
>> future,
>> since we are only grabbing a temporary "mandate".
>>
>> Q: What does temporary mean exactly?
>>
>> We don't know. 6 months, a year? We will see. But it IS temporary in 
>> any
>> case, if SqF hasn't formed a replacement scheme - then we will solve 
>> it
>> some other way, like for example by putting a new group in place.
>>
>> Q: What is this group called? Mysterious Island is a bit long...
>>
>> Yeah. :) Castaways? Settlers? Silly-sods-taking-all-the-crap? Hehe, 
>> you
>> decide.
>>
>> Q: What happens now?
>>
>> In day-to-day practice not much revolutionary will happen immediately.
>> Things continue mostly like before - but there are a few big 
>> differences
>> in how the community will operate:
>>
>> 	- Decisions that needs to be made for Squeak will in the end be made 
>> by
>> us. Of course, the discussions are as open as always right here on
>> squeak-dev, and we are not claiming to know everything - people with 
>> the
>> knowledge still affect the process just like always. In fact, this is
>> more of a responsibility than anything else. We take the 
>> responsibility
>> to make the decisions instead of just having discussions turning into
>> endless debate.
>>
>> 	- You can always ask us. Since we now make the decisions and thus,
>> consequentially, form the direction forward for Squeak - we should be
>> able to answer any questions with authority. This helps the community 
>> a
>> lot.
>>
>> 	- Any and all Squeak issues should be discussed just like before, on
>> squeak-dev. Yes, we do have the private list mentioned above - but it
>> will not contain any discussion except for when we think it is needed 
>> to
>> do it privately. The Guides did everything openly. We do not and we
>> require at least a small private forum in order to operate well.
>>
>> Other than that, the plans haven't been made yet. We have promised to
>> take a good look at the roadmap Stephane has presented and will 
>> probably
>> do that as one of our first tasks. And all the other things going on 
>> at
>> this moment continues as before, like the restarted partitioning of 
>> the
>> image etc.
>>
>> How we will organize within our group, with roles and how decisions 
>> are
>> tracked etc, well, we haven't decided yet. But from now on you can use
>> mysterious-island at discuss.squeakfoundation.org to reach all of us. 
>> More
>> on that later.
>>
>> So if you want to alert us and make sure your issue isn't drowning in
>> squeak-dev, use the above. We are of course all reading squeak-dev, 
>> but
>> sometimes the traffic can be intense and CCing to the above will make
>> sure we can filter it out.
>>
>> If anyone has additional questions - feel free to just reply to this
>> posting (on squeak-dev) and we will try hard to answer. :)
>>
>> regards, Göran Krampe on behalf of the castaways
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
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>
>
--
"I blame Al-Jazeera - they are marketing for the Americans!" - Mohammed 
Saeed al-Sahaf
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