[Vm-dev] VM team

[David T. Lewis]

The Squeak oversight board suggested that we formalize a VM team
(http://squeakboard.wordpress.com/) and Bert asked if I would be willing
to serve as team leader. I replied that I would be happy to do so.

I'd like to start by asking the list, and specifically the major platform
developers (Ian, John, Andreas) for your support - do you agree that
this is a good idea, and are you willing to have me serve as team
leader?

We will need to set some team objectives, and then establish a plan
to achieve them. For starters, here are some initial ideas for a set
of VM team objectives. All comments, additions, deletions, objections,
etc are welcome.

- Community
  - Communicate status and announcements to the community
  - Periodically update team objectives based on community input
  - Ensure availability of known-good versions (SqueakMap, Universes, SqueakSource)
  - Identify where help is needed (e.g. Sugar, Ubuntu, sound support)
  - Where appropriate, inform Board of resource or funding needs
    (e.g. access to computers for building and testing VM distributions)
- Support Squeak as an open system
  - Support educational goals, an accessible VM is part of Squeak as a learning tool
  - Write it in Squeak, run it in Squeak, debug it in Squeak (InterpreterSimulator should work)
  - Everyone should be able to explore and create their own Squeak VM
  - Ensure license integrity
- Provide solid base to enable VM distributions
  - Support distribution developers (Ian, John, Andreas, Tim, others)
    - Primary support for Mac/Win/unix/iSqueak
    - Enablement for others including RiscOS and SqueakNOS, new projects
    - Identify resources to support distribution developers
  - Coordinate changes across the several platform source trees and VMMaker
  - Ensure owners and maintainers for plugins
  - Drive resolution of Mantis issues
- Provide base to support new ideas for VM
  - Support and enable new development (Spoon, Exupery, Cog, Hydra, others)
  - Enable new image formats (including 64-bit object memory, Cog)
- Support Squeak new directions
  - Support eToys, OLPC, SqueakNOS, Cuis, Pharo
  - Provide common VM where possible, encourage extensions as needed

Dave