[IAEP] squeak/etoys accepted as free software...

[Jecel Assumpcao Jr]

Some of what I will write below will sound very trollish, and I am sorry
about that. Please keep in mind that I am trying to be as serious and
objective as possible.

Albert Cahalan wrote:
> Jecel Assumpcao Jr writes:
> > Is the subject correct? I mean I know we are talking about a directory
> > called "non-free" but is there anyone out there that after what has been
> > said still doesn't accept etoys as Free Software?
> 
> I'm not fully convinced. It is apparently free of horrible legal
> problems, but it's not in a reasonable form for modification.
> The freedom is not fully usable in any reasonable way.

Squeak allows me to legally and technically do anything I want with it,
IF I happen to know it well enough. If I don't then I can't but then we
are talking about the value of Squeak to me rather than its freedom.

> > [Smalltalks that can bootstrap from text]
> 
> The solution should be obvious: pick any one of those Smalltalks,
> and port something to it. Use standard audio and image formats
> for the source-free multimedia blobs.
> 
> Your choices:
> 
> A. Port the code that generates the Squeak VM executable. Port any
> code needed to create a VM. Make VM creation part of the build process.
> BTW, this really should be set up to allow cross-compiling, but I admit
> that lots of craptastic software fails to meet this higher standard.

This would allow someone familiar with C but not with Smalltalk to look
at the C code (which they can already do) and to modify it directly
(which currently will get their change ignored). I will argue that this
has no value in practice because without Smalltalk knowledge (and very
deep one at that) the VM will not make enough sense to someone (even if
written directly in C - please browse the C++ sources for the Self or
Strongtalk VMs to see what I mean) for them to be able to contribute.
That is not the case for the plugins, in which knowing mpeg (for
example) might be much more important than knowing Smalltalk, but these
parts are already written natively in C and on a SVN server.

> B. Port just Etoys, eliminating the need for Squeak. This might be
> more a matter of adding multimedia stuff to a non-Squeak Smalltalk.

This is exactly what Alan Kay proposed soon after OLPC was started in
his keynote at PyCon (see the "Children First" entry for July 3, 2006 in
http://www.smalltalk.org.br/movies/). He pleaded with the Python
community to create their version of Etoys for the XO and since there is
nothing particularly Smalltalkish about Etoys this would be an effort
comparable to your suggestion.

I predicted it wouldn't happen. Not because of any technical difficulty,
but because of differences in the typical mindsets of the Python and
Squeak communities. If you don't mind using VI yourself it is harder to
build a nice graphical environment for children ("eating your own dog
food" and all that). In theory bootstrapping from text or image based
development should make no difference at all and a GNU Smalltalk Etoys
should be a very reasonable porting effort. In practice, I predict it
won't happen.

Of course, this all supposes the open source model. If someone gets paid
to do a Python Etoys or a GNU Smalltalk one then I wouldn't be at all
surprised to see a good quality implementation created from scratch in
just a couple of months.

> > But as you said, the people who can do it don't
> > have any reason to do so. This leads us to the situation where there is
> > a group of people who want to do something which they feel would be very
> > important but they can't do it themselves and another group that could
> > do it but are busy with other things. It is very easy for discussions to
> > get heated under such circumstances.
> 
> It's not merely a matter of not being "people who can do it".
> It's more a problem of "why should we do your work?". When you
> want to join a group, you need to follow the customs and not
> expect others to pick up your slack.

True, but it isn't us (those who can do that work) that want to join
some Linux distribution but instead it normally is relatively new
Squeakers who most want this and are the most vocal about it. It was
about this group that I was talking about.

-- Jecel