A package universe is better than Monticello or SqueakMap for
beginners and for people who don't care whether they have the absolute
latest version, but just want something that is going to work.

Squeak Map is better for people who want to explore, for people who
want to find everything, even if it takes a little work to get it
going.

Monticello is better for people who  want to participate in the
development of a package or who want the latest version.  It takes
more expertise to use Monticello than to use a package universe.

A package universe comes with some sort of understanding (I was going
to say "guarentee", but changed my mind) that the packages all work
together.  This implies that someone is responsible for it.  Squeak
Map is a set of things that someone, at some time, thought was
interesting, but many of them do not work together, and that is OK.
It would not be OK if a package universe contained packages that did
not work together.  I think a package universe will work best if it is
"owned" by someone or by a small group.  A package universe is by
design not complete, but it is consistent.

Squeak Map is complete.  There is only one Squeak Map, and everything
is in it.  Or should be.  Anybody can write to it, and anybody who has
ever made a Squeak package should write to it to tell the world about
what they have done.  Consequently, Squeak Map is not consistent.

So, I think there is room for all three systems.  They each do
something different.

I think that newcomers should start out with a package universe and
then graduate to Squeak Map and Monticello.

-Ralph Johnson