Jerome Peace wrote:
> Limbo, again!
>
>
> 3.10.2 is released.
>
> 4.0 is on the horizon (and behind schedule).
>   

> 3.11 or 3.10.3 is where? 
>   
We have been working on 3.11, particular effort has been expended in the 
political arena... we now have an official 3.11 plan ratified by the 
board. Of course this leaves the task of actually doing it...

Matthew and I have a fairly good idea of where we want to go with 
things. The goals we have set for 3.11 are far broader than just 
throwing a new image at the community at some future date. We are aiming 
to take some responsibility and provide mechanisms for supporting all 
users of squeak whatever image version to have a better experience.

We do this in recognition that there is a brave new world coming in the 
shape of Squeak 4.0 and we are looking to put together a process that 
supports everyone else in the meantime, tending to more stable 
production images for everyone.

I myself am currently fighting my own deadlines, and looking after 
someone (24/7) who is virtually catatonic at the moment, so some 
essential parts of the tools chain are in stasis right now while I am 
stressed out of my mind.

However its not all bad news, one of the major goals of 3.11 is to 
include LPF with atomic loading provided by MC1.6, and simultaneously to 
provide this for 3.7, 3.8, 3.9, Croquet, Pharo and etoys. AFAIK. Matthew 
has made great progress towards this goal.

Other goals and progress are available to see on 
http://installer.pbwiki.com/311 and related pages.
> The reason I complain is that currently
>  there are fixes available to vexing problems with 3.10.2 
> (fonts stabilitity, FFI installability). 
> But no easy way for users to get the benifit of them. 
>   
Not true...

Any fixes needed for specific packages can be added to the load scripts 
in Sake/Packages, and many such fixes have been in place for a couple of 
months now, including FFI and Fonts.

To take advantage of these simply load LPF and Sake/Packages.

Installer upgrade.
Installer install: 'LevelPlayingField'.
Installer install: 'Packages'.

Matthew and Ken have just completed a review checking all packages in 
SqueakMap
This is another task intended to support the whole community in keeping 
with our broader goals.
> ( I consider loading the patches individually into the images
>  not to be particularly easy).
>
> Mantis reports:
> http://bugs.squeak.org/view.php?id=7140
> 0007140: Loading FFI renders sockets non-functional.
> http://bugs.squeak.org/view.php?id=6980
> 0006980: Loading FFI kernel makes NetNameResolver unresponsive	
>
>   
You surely must know that there is a list of other fixes available on 
http://installer.pbwiki.com/MinorFixesUnstable page.
As far as I know Ken Brown and I are the only people using this list in 
our working images to test things out.
 
To see what would be loaded...
Installer view: 'LatestUnstable'.

Or to actually perform the load.
Installer install: 'LatestUnstable'.

The community can contribute to assessing the fixes listed there, we 
need votes as to which deserve to be transferred to the MinorFixes 
(non-Unstable) task which is used as part of the 3.11 build script.
> The fact this now has a duplicate indicates how much the fix is needed.
>
> 0006577: In sq 7170 loaded projects get unexpected font changes	
> http://bugs.squeak.org/view.php?id=6577
>
> I've written a dozen emails about this.
> http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2008-June/129332.html
> [squeak-dev] 3.10.2-rc is missing TTCFont registry fixes M6577FontRegFix-wiz.2.cs
>   
Is this on MinorFixesUnstable?
> I'd rather spend my time on newer bugs.
>
> So, Randal, if you and the rest of the board
>  can solve the harvesting problem or
>  even improve the current state of affairs. 
> You would have my gratitude.
>   
I do not think we have a harvesting problem, since we have a process in 
place, and the political will from the board to endorse this process. 
There are 40 bugs on the MinorFixesUnstable page and I run my images 
with all of them. Feel free to add some more. This is our current 
harvesting in-tray. Ok so it may not be ideal, and we await the build 
test server (my bad), but it is a process that is in place and it does 
work to some extent.
> My question for the board, (particularly in the person of Randal )
>  is how do we move forward NOW?
>   
The board made one decision... to cancel any 3.11... and following my 
suggestion, they reversed that decision. 3.11 lives but as a result of 
my protests I stepped up to the leadership role. The unfortunate penalty 
for this decision being that I have to pay my rent first, and "cure" the 
aforementioned catatonic person.

So please join us in irc #squeak where matthew and I hang out most 
evenings, and we can advise you on how to make best use of things that 
are in place or currently being worked on.
> Yours in service and curiosity, --Jerome Peace
>
>   
best regards

Keith

p.s.  We also anticipate reviewing Edgars image so that his hard work 
can be included along side ours