I have to comment because sometimes you have a strange view at what I  
said. This
is certainly due to my french.

>      My perception is that Stef left the board because another board
> member and I don't support the way he thinks the Foundation should  
> spend
> money. Stef proposed a "bounty" system to motivate Squeak development.
> My opinion is that such a system is not worth the additional political
> risks to the community.

I did not left because you did not accept a bounty system. This is  
wrong and you know it
but may be you were not understanding what I said. You can send the  
log of our con
versation or open the mailing-list if you want.

I agreed that a bounty system involves a risk that it may be wise to  
take. This is
why I was discussing ways how to push the community and how to spend  
money.

But I left because I think that SqF could at least think that it  
should help the work of the
integrators by investing a bit of money making the process better.
And I hated the remark that we should do it for fun... sure  
harvesting bugs is so incredibily fun
and give us so much energy!!!!...duh? Look at marcus state of mind now.
If the squeak foundation can not support the most important squeak  
activity = creation of new release
and improvement then I thought that I have not the time to lose there.

You remember certainly that I did a bad draft of a requirement list  
for a build system
and I got No reaction. I also left because six months to think and  
decide about a
new web site for squeakF is too long for me.


>      Of course, our situation as a community is inherently and
> unavoidably political, the scarce resource being the time that people
> can spend on Squeak development. I have participated in this community
> for its entire existence. I have seen heated exchanges over whose work
> should be "accepted", without money at stake. I think the situation is
> very likely to be worse if money is involved. It is unclear to  
> everyone
> (including Stef, as far as I can tell) which projects are worthy of
> bounties, how large each bounty should be, and how preferred  
> submissions
> should be chosen. Any one of these ambiguities invites disaster.

Exact!
This is why I pushed but not heavily the bounty system and I was  
trying to
find solutions.

>      And there are other problems with the idea. There is no reliable
> funding source for such a system. People do donate to the Foundation
> (which is wonderful), but the income is sporadic. I would hate for  
> such
> a system to commence, only to stall in the future due to a lack of
> funds. I think the community would ultimately hurt itself by fostering
> an expectation of financial motivation which is unsustainable. At the
> very least, I would want a bounty system to be funded in advance for a
> significant term. I don't think that's gong to happen any time soon. I
> think we're better off using what money the Foundation has to pay
> unavoidable expenses (such as, yes, keeping servers running).

But this way nothing happens.

>      Stef writes:
>
>> Note that I pushed ESUG to give money and put in place the sponsoring
>> program so that we can get money to do stuff to help squeak. But now
>> I'm sorry but I have not the time to fight, so now SqF has money for
>> the servers. Excellent!
>
>      As Stef says, the Foundation received a donation from ESUG in the
> past, at his behest. Later, when ESUG initiated its "SummerTalk"  
> program
> (after a failed last-minute bid for Google sponsorship), Stef
> effectively demanded that the Foundation sponsor SummerTalk  
> projects. He
> threatened us with a negative reaction from ESUG if we didn't use its
> donation in that way (as he reiterates below).

I never said that. I never threatened anybody about that. I just   
said that I could not decently
ask ESUG to give us money if we do nothing with it. The same for  
other sponsors
I would feel bad to contact people and ask them to financially  
support us if we do not have
results to show or at least projects to spend the money on.

> We acceded. Personally, I
> decided this was the best to spend that money, just to diffuse the
> conflict.

I think that sponsoring SummerTalk is easy to get projects done in  
squeak
and it was simple to associate SqF with action. This way we could  
present SqF as an
active entity promoting squeak and smalltalk. It was cheap and easy.  
No time
from us.

> I think that, as far as possible, the Foundation should be
> able to act independently. If a donor wants to earmark funds for a
> particular purpose, it should say so before donating so that the board
> can consider that when deciding whether to accept the money.

Of course. But you are really lying how what I said. Thanks a lot for  
that Craig.
In fact I'm really happy that I left. You are really strange in fact.

ESUG gave the money but never put string on it. I was just saying  
that if we do
not do anything with the money then we cannot ask for sponsors or money.
So participating to Summertalk for 500 Euro was a simple and  
practical way to
get visibility as an entity doing things for squeak (three or 4  
projects on 5 of the SummerTalk
are developed on Squeak and two projects are about the compiler and  
fast loading).

ESUG gave money to squeak.e.v and we never ask what they did with it.  
Now if Squeak.e.v
wants more money ESUG will ask what for.

>> I will report to the ESUG board the situation and they will certainly
>> not agree to give more money for SqF and they will be right.
>
>        It's great that the beginner list is a success. However, I  
> don't
> think it makes sense to tie the merit of one idea (bounties) to the
> success of another (the beginner list) simply because the same person
> advocated them both.

I was not. I was just showing that sometimes it takes more energy to  
discuss
endlessly than to do things. Because if I would not have push the  
idea so far
we would still be discussing about pros and cons for a mailing-list  
(do you imagine
a mailing-list).

> Furthermore, there were several members of the
> community with reasonable doubts about the beginner list. Stef wasn't
> just debating the board on that issue, so bringing it up in a  
> discussion
> of internal board conflict doesn't make much sense to me either.

Exact!
but sometimes moving things is important, great wise.

>> I proposed since months the squeakfoundation to help in the first
>> place the release team because we had a really hard-time. Helping by
>> allocating some money to suppot the dev of some tools that we do not
>> have the time to develop like a build process tools. I did a first
>> sketch (quite dry) of the behavior of such a tool.
>>
>> And basically the answer of two of the three members yesterday was
>> that "if you do not do it for fun then you should drop it". I found
>> that answer totally insane and I got mad and I do not want to hear
>> about the SqF even if I was the first member of it.
>
>      At that point in the conversation, it seemed to me that Stef was
> making another demand, that someone *owed* him more than gratitude for
> the work he had done. He complained that he and another member of the
> release team had become physically ill from their exertion. I found  
> this
> very disturbing. No one should feel obligated to push themselves to
> physical illness for a volunteer effort.

We never ask for rewards or congratulation. We asked for notice that
the situation cannot continue like that and that this is important to  
help
there and since really few people take care of squeak release and  
integration
then this is not these people (me and marcus) that will have the time to
do it.

> The other board member and I reminded Stef that we're all in the
> same situation here. We all realize that everyone's time is  
> precious and
> scarce. No one has the right to tell someone else how to spend their
> time. The flipside is that no one has the right to complain about how
> much time they've volunteered. And I can just see how much worse this
> would be with money at stake: "What? You're not going to choose my
> submission for the bounty? But I worked so hard on it!" and so on.

But I still do not understand why the sqF could not decide:
ok we want to help the release process and we will invest money on that.
But now I'm in the board anymore and I will let you discuss.

>      What the other board member actually said to Stef was that if the
> work was taking such a toll, he hoped for Stef's sake that he would  
> take
> a break from it.

this was not the exact form of the remarks.

> I think he said this more out of concern for Stef's
> health than to reiterate a point about volunteerism.

Sorry I do not understand your english.

> But I still think
> the point is valid, as harsh as it can sound to someone who has  
> expended
> a great deal of effort. The last thing I want for any community is an
> argument about who the biggest martyr is.
>
> ***
>
>      On a practical note, the board is now deciding what to do  
> about the
> vacancy left by Stef, since there is currently no policy about this.
>
>      Stef, I'm disappointed that you feel as you do, and wish you
> success and fulfillment in however you choose to spend your time.

You are so kind and I'm so nasty.

Stef