From: Pharo-dev [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Eric
Gade
Sent: Saturday, 16 May, 2020 10:49
To: Pharo Development List <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [Pharo-dev] Squeak and Pharo why the fork
On Sat, May 16, 2020 at 11:19 AM Ben Coman <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> > wrote:
But lets also consider something at least as important as all the other
points... "resourcing".
Assuming all technical and political issues were dealt with, who will do this
reintegration work?
Assuming You were at a point where you were familiar with both platforms to be
capable of doing the work,
would You be willing to put aside your other interests to do at least 50% of
that work?
I know Pharo has the consortium, which funds some of the work that goes on. I
also know that Squeak has a foundation, but that it barely keeps the servers
running. Even if there were just one open source Smalltalk out there, resources
are limited. VM developers, especially, need to be compensated somehow. I have
often wondered why there is not some Patreon like option for the developers of
the Opensmalltalk-vm or similar unity efforts. I would gladly part with $20/mo
or whatever to ensure that development happens in a coherent and agreeable way.
In short, I don't think this is just about "people doing the work." Most
smalltalkers can't do the VM work, for example. It requires a lot of knowledge
and experience. People have day jobs, and that saps not only their time, but
their mental capacity to program. I'm thinking small amounts of money from
members of the community would go further in enhancing the big parts of these
systems than minor, scattered programming contributions. But that's just my
$0.02.
This does sound more realistic and more sustainable.
Shaping
