[Squeakfoundation]An architecture for sustainable Squeaking

[Henrik Gedenryd]

My central argument was that we need to have a process for
accepting/filtering etc. modifications to the shared code base, which allows
people to work freely where appropriate but also to make contributions (or
more importantly, allow us to actually use others' contributions). Does any
existing tool address this problem? And this is not just a problem of
software engineering, but of social engineering.

I think the tension between Squeak and existing team-process tools could be
described as, dare I say it this week, one between unmanaged evolution and
managed, explicit design.

Thus I don't think any existing concepts, team tools, etc. will completely
help us with this problem. And having "owners" for classes, like in Envy or
so, I think that is completely unrealistic here.

I would not be the first to claim that team-oriented solutions require more
formalized group structures and organized development than an Internet open
source community. I don't really see that we could have any formal roles at
all. It won't work in practice. The few we have, for vm platform keepers,
only work so-so (witness the CVS debates). And this is not a criticism of
the keepers but a note that such fixed, high-dependability roles are
problematic.

Henrik