Thanks for asking us. Personally I think it would be better for ESUG not to contribute financially to Pharo. In general, user groups don't contribute financially to the organizations which make the products in question - indeed, often it works the other way around, with the product organizations sponsoring user groups or their activities.

I'm sure everyone would agree that any board members with a clear connection to Pharo should declare a conflict of interest on this issue, and refrain from discussion or voting. That's standard practice, and for good reason. Even when a board is completely open, honest, and declares even potentially perceived conflicts of interest, those outside the board will always be outsiders, and liable to feel not everything is being revealed - that's just human nature.

It's great that the board is asking for our opinions, and I'm sure they'll make the best decision for ESUG. And whatever happens, I'm sure Pharo and other Smalltalks know ESUG is very much on their side.

All the best,
Steve
PS useful advice on conflicts of interest for non-profits:
http://www.boardsource.org/Knowledge.asp?ID=3.389

Steven Kelly, CTO, MetaCase

Thanks, Steve, I couldn't make my point clearer than you did.

It's great ESUG is there, and it's great that Pharo is pushing on
Smalltalk the way and at the pace it does. It's good that both ESUG and
Pharo are here and we all benefit a lot from both of them, as we do from
other Smalltalk vendors' work and open source projects.

I am not aware of the detailed financial situation of ESUG, but I would
prefer to see things like multi-platform Smalltalk projects being
supported/sponsored by ESUG. The multi-platform nature should be a high
priority. Not all Smalltalkers can freely choose what dialect they use,
and one of the goals of ESUG is (or should be) to help get all
Smalltalkers in closer touch and make the Smalltalk worl a better place
for all of us.

So, if there is some yearly program in which the community can choose a
project or platform to be supported financially, why not also support
the Pharo Consortium? But also help Amber, GST, Seaside or whatever
project in anotrher year.

I am glad people are volunteering for the ESUG board, and I am grateful
for the organizers of the ESUG conference and all the other good stuff
ESUG is doing. I am also happy about the drive behind Pharo. But these
are two pairs of shoes.

Joachim

Am 04.07.12 22:25, schrieb Steven Kelly:

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Objektfabrik Joachim Tuchel          mailto:jtuchel@objektfabrik.de

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Hi ESUG members,

On Wed, Jul 4, 2012 at 5:15 PM, Michael Haupt mhaupt@gmail.com wrote:

here are the members of the ESUG's board:

President: Stéphane Ducasse
Treasurer: Luc Fabresse
Damien Cassou
Jordi Delgado
Marcus Denker
Alain Plantec
Serge Stinckwich

The rest of this email is my personal opinion and does not necessarily
reflect the one of the board.

Even though I'm unsure about your definition of "representatives of
communities", I don't see myself as being one, whatever the community
you pick. When I decided I wanted to join the board this was not to
represent Smalltalk or Squeak, this was because I loved both and
wanted to spend some time helping. I got elected by participants of
the conference during the last talk, three years ago. I believe this
is the same for most other members, i.e., we don't represent a
particular Smalltalk, we just want to help and do some work for
everyone. Now, if a representative of a community wants to work with
us, we would love to receive his application.

For 3 years now that I'm in this board, we received a lot of
requests for sponsoring (being projects, participation to the
conferences, books, articles, ...). If we didn't accept all requests,
I think we are very very close. Most of the times, requests arrive in
already a good shape, we see a great potential for the community or a
real need, and we accept them. Sometimes, we ask people to work some
more on the proposal and most of the time we will eventually accept
them as well. I invite any interested Smalltalker out there to send
founding proposals, we are always happy to help when we can.

Now, let's face it: 2 of the most active participants of the ESUG
board (Marcus and Stéphane) are leaders on the Pharo project. But we,
as a community, must not forget that both where among the most active
participants of Squeak before (I'm talking about code, organization,
presentations, books, ...). These two are very active for the
Smalltalk community and have been for quite some time now. If they
decide to quit the ESUG board (and we already talked about that among
members of the board), who will step up and do their job? I think each
of them spends roughly 1h per day (probably more than that) on ESUG
tasks: preparing the conference, taking care of legal issues,
administrating the web servers, taking care of requests for
sponsoring... Not so funny jobs. They both prefer coding, believe me.
I don't see anyone else in the current board who could do their job
and we didn't receive any application to join the board for at least 3
years.

Finally, the board decided to raise this issue with you today for 1
reason: we are aware of the conflict of interest! We want your opinion
about founding a particular dialect that shares some active
participants with the board itself. But while giving your opinion
please remember one thing: ESUG did help other communities in the past
and we will continue to do it.

My even more personal opinion: would it be fair not to help Pharo
create a consortium simply because some members are so prolific that
they can be very useful for two organizations at the same time? I
don't believe so and I vote for becoming a member of the Pharo
consortium just as much as I would vote for becoming a member of any
other Smalltalk consortium/association/organization/group/whatever.

Best regards,

--
Damien Cassou
http://damiencassou.seasidehosting.st

"Lambdas are relegated to relative obscurity until Java makes them
popular by not having them." James Iry

Damien,

thanks - well noted. Let me reinforce that I do not question the
intentions of anybody in particular. The personal overlaps between the
two entities involved might be considered problematic, and I want to
make up my mind.

On 4 July 2012 23:32, Damien Cassou damien.cassou@gmail.com wrote:

Say, if someone predominantly uses one particular flavour in their
daily Smalltalking life, they'd be part of that flavour's community;
and being on the board, representing it.

In contrast to my earlier e-mail on process transparency, I have
noticed that while the election itself is transparent, the path to
being eligible in the first place is not. Is there actually such a
thing as a call for applications when board members' terms end? Is
there a nomination phase? A Q&A period to help people make up their
minds?

In short, how does this work?

Good question; see above.

What amount is being considered? What percentage of the ESUG budget is that?

Regards,

Michael

Hi,
the smalltalk community is very small, so there is always going to be a
kind of "conflict of interest". ESUG has sponsored many projects in
different flavors of smalltalk  and for sure, in many of them, there was
one or more members of the ESUG board and other boards or groups or
companies and nobody cared...
I don't think that this idea has a "hidden agenda", I mean, the money it
is not going to go to any ESUG board member's pocket but to somebody that
will help to have a better smalltalk.
Also, for me the election process of the ESUG board was always clear, open
and I could saw it with my own eyes, so I have no doubts there either.
ESUG has helped a lot of people and organizations related with smalltalk,
it would be a pitty not to do it with pharo.
I see this action as a positive one, so I think it is a good idea.
In any case, companies that give money to esug that could see this as a
"threat" should be the one to complain but I have not seen any doing it so
far.
The Smalltalk comminiy is small (ironically), let's help each other! Let's
be positive!

Hernan
Ps: thank you for being open and ask something you are not obligated to,
that shows transparency, and please do not confuse clear proceses with
lack of transparency, when you DO there is always somerhing you are going
to DO wrong, but at least you did!

On Wed, Jul 4, 2012 at 5:25 PM, Steven Kelly stevek@metacase.com wrote:

to contribute financially to Pharo. In general, user groups don't
contribute financially to the organizations which make the products in
question - indeed, often it works the other way around, with the product
organizations sponsoring user groups or their activities.

connection to Pharo should declare a conflict of interest on this issue,
and refrain from discussion or voting. That's standard practice, and for
good reason. Even when a board is completely open, honest, and declares
even potentially perceived conflicts of interest, those outside the board
will always be outsiders, and liable to feel not everything is being
revealed - that's just human nature.

they'll make the best decision for ESUG. And whatever happens, I'm sure
Pharo and other Smalltalks know ESUG is very much on their side.

--
Hernán Wilkinson
Agile Software Development, Teaching & Coaching
Phone: +54 - 011 - 4311 - 8404
Mobile: +54 - 911 - 4470 - 7207
email: hernan.wilkinson@10Pines.com
site: http://www.10Pines.com
Address: Paraguay 523, Floor 7 N, Buenos Aires, Argentina

--
Hernán Wilkinson
Agile Software Development, Teaching & Coaching
Phone: +54 - 011 - 4311 - 8404*
Mobile: +54 - 911 - 4470 - 7207
email: hernan.wilkinson@10Pines.com
site: http://www.10Pines.com http://www.10pines.com/*
Address: Paraguay 523, Floor 7 N, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Well written and argumented Steven !

Marten

Am 04.07.2012 22:25, schrieb Steven Kelly:

Il 04/07/2012 23:32, Damien Cassou ha scritto:

No, but it is still a conflict of interest.  I would expect that
Stephane and Marcus do not vote on the issue, and possibly that they do
not participate in board discussions on the matter.

In general I would say that money should flow the other way round
(Pharo->ESUG).  However, as long as the above basic principle is held, I
have no objection to sponsoring the consortium.

Paolo

Thanks maarteen

Reading this thread after all we did for Smalltalk is quite taught. The wolfs are back apparently. Sad period.
I think the esug board will have to really decide if ESUG is worth after all. Now may be ESUG popularity is a problem for
certain people or this is the pharo popularity.
May be this is good to not give a chance to a promising open source project (especially when we see that such question never
arose when it was about other Smalltalks). Life is so funny sometimes.

Stef

On Jul 5, 2012, at 6:36 AM, Maarten Mostert wrote: