On 5 July 2012 11:42, Steven Kelly <stevek@metacase.com> wrote: > I think there's a misunderstanding about what "conflict of interest" means. It doesn't mean that person is bad. It doesn't mean they are abusing their power. It doesn't mean they would get money through it. All it means is that they have an interest in the matter at hand, in addition to their role on the board. > > In academic circles, often you can't review a paper if you have been a co-author with one of its authors in the last N years. That's a similar kind of thing - nobody's saying that because of that, you'd accept the paper, or would be incapable of being objective, or the paper's authors would pay you(!). It's just agreed that it's better if you don't review it. > You miss an important detail: an academic circles is a competitive environment, and that's why it is completely reasonable to have such rules and watch for potential conflict(s) , because most of those rules were developed by taking competition in mind. ESUG, in contrast, does not operates in competitive environment, and based solely on the good will and enthusiasm of the people. So i actually wondering why we blindly applying the principles from competitive environment to something which is not? > One of the reasons why people with "conflicts of interest" don't get to vote or take part in the discussion, is that people with an extra interest are likely to get annoyed with the discussion. That's bad for the community - those people may be demotivated, and the rest may feel less trust in their board. > Every decision made will divide people on those who fine with it and those who not.. You cannot make everyone happy. This is fact of reality :) The only way how to not make new enemies is to not do anything.. > In any case, as far as I understand it, the ESUG board makes decisions about sponsorship - not the ESUG membership. They've heard our opinions, both for and against, and they can go ahead and make their decision. I for one will support them, whatever they decide. Not because as individuals they've done so much for Smalltalk, for so little reward, but because they're smart people who we've trusted to make ESUG decisions on our behalf. > > All the best, > Steve > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Igor Stasenko [mailto:siguctua@gmail.com] >> Sent: 5. heinäkuuta 2012 12:22 >> To: Steven Kelly; ESUG Mailing list >> Subject: Re: [Esug-list] ESUG considers sponsoring the Pharo Consortium >> >> On 5 July 2012 10:35, Steven Kelly <stevek@metacase.com> wrote: >> > Since I didn't really see an answer to Michael Haupt's question, >> about what is the main Smalltalk dialect of the board members, I did a >> quick Google on their home pages, looking there or on CVs for which >> Smalltalk is mentioned. Obviously this is not an accurate method, and >> I'd much rather the board members answered the question - please, >> please don't get annoyed because Google says this, just tell us what >> the real situation is. But for what little it's worth: >> > >> >> here are the members of the ESUG's board: >> >> >> >> President: Stéphane Ducasse <- Pharo >> >> Treasurer: Luc Fabresse <- Pharo >> >> Damien Cassou <- Pharo >> >> Jordi Delgado <- Pharo >> >> Marcus Denker <- Squeak, Pharo >> >> Alain Plantec <- Pharo >> >> Serge Stinckwich <- none on home page, adding various >> Smalltalk names to the search terms shows several, with Pharo giving >> most hits >> > >> >> Just one little note: >> AFAIK, none of the above people real job directly related to Pharo. >> Nobody pays them for contributing to pharo not a penny. >> I am hired for work on Pharo, so strictly speaking i would be the only >> with conflict here, but i am not a member of board, >> and obviously not the one who stays behind this.. I was not aware of >> that, and actually was quite surprised to see such decision. >> >> As from the mission of ESUG - promote smalltalk, supporting Pharo is >> consistent with that.. or i miss something? >> >> If there's a conflict, can someone tell me, what will be direct >> personal benefit(s) for ESUG board members if they will decide to >> sponsor Pharo? >> They will get what? Another countless not paid hours in their life, >> which they would rather spend with their family? >> >> >> As a tangent, a first question what we should ask, IMO is: is there >> other project/activities, which to our thinking will help better >> promoting smalltalk >> than sponsoring pharo? If there's one and it is clearly have higher >> priority according to ESUG mission, then board's decision >> should and must be argued. >> But if there's none, do you think it would be better to just hold >> money on bank account? Because then ESUG would fail with its mission.. >> >> I am of course unaware by what the board decision was directed to such >> decision.. but in my opinion it cannot be directed by anything else >> than: promoting smalltalk. >> >> > If that's the impression a casual web browse gives, then even if it >> is totally and utterly incorrect, hopefully the board can understand >> why it seems reasonable to members who don't know all the details to >> mention potential conflicts of interest. >> > >> > So, what does it mean that if so many on the board have a Pharo link? >> First, it's brilliant that these people are active in doing something >> for a Smalltalk, as well as their great work in ESUG. Second, it's >> brilliant that Pharo people are active in wider promotion of Smalltalk >> in general. And third, it's going to be rather difficult to have a >> sensible vote on the board, and discussions on the members email list >> may be a little tense :). >> > >> > No worries from me, though. I think it's great what ESUG are doing, >> and great what Pharo is doing. Personally I'd rather not have ESUG >> sponsor Pharo, but that's just one person's opinion, and hopefully >> nobody gets upset about it. >> > >> > Go Smalltalk! >> > Steve >> > >> > _______________________________________________ >> > Esug-list mailing list >> > Esug-list@lists.esug.org >> > http://lists.esug.org/mailman/listinfo/esug-list_lists.esug.org >> >> >> >> -- >> Best regards, >> Igor Stasenko. -- Best regards, Igor Stasenko.

> -------- Original-Nachricht -------- > Datum: Thu, 5 Jul 2012 11:29:53 +0200 > Von: Alexandre Bergel <abergel@dcc.uchile.cl> > An: Maarten Mostert <maarten.mostert@wanadoo.fr> > CC: esug-list@lists.esug.org, Marcus Denker <marcus.denker@inria.fr> > Betreff: Re: [Esug-list] ESUG considers sponsoring the Pharo Consortium > > > Being accused of conflicting interest is not very nice to > hear, so please those of you concerned stay above that and with us. > > Well, this is something that should be avoided. But again, the community > is so small, that is hard to avoid. We almost have permanent interest > conflict in the research track of esug. > > > I never used Pharo, But If the ESUG board decided to sponsor it, than I > just respect their choice. > > > I hardly see how supporting Pharo can be seen as unfair. Improving Pharo > will help the whole Smalltalk community. It looks like clear to me. Here is how it is unfair: If I understand the basic process of selecting and supporting projects by ESUG, then the distribution of projects supported by ESUG is roughly equivalent to the popularity of the various communities. This seems entirely fair and reasonable to me, and ESUG is doing a good job with the various projects it supports. However, once ESUG starts giving chunks of money to particular dialects directly, then first of all that money is no longer spent across the various dialects. So for an approx. 3000 EUR Pharo membership the board could sponsor 20 students with 150 EUR each. And while it may be that 15 of those are indeed Pharo related, there is still sponsorshop done for the remaining 5 which would fall under the table if the money went directly to Pharo. That's seems obviously unfair. Secondly, the membership in Pharo is perpetual; if some other project raises in popularity there will *still* 100% of the money be going to Pharo. For eternity. That's just as unfair. There is nothing wrong with sponsoring Pharo projects by ESUG. What's wrong is giving the money, which would otherwise be spent in some relation to the popularity of each dialect, to one dialect only. Cheers,   - Andreas

Hi Andreas On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 3:15 PM, Andreas Raab <Andreas.Raab@gmx.de> wrote: > Here is how it is unfair: If I understand the basic process of selecting and > supporting projects by ESUG, then the distribution of projects supported by > ESUG is roughly equivalent to the popularity of the various communities. > This seems entirely fair and reasonable to me, and ESUG is doing a good job > with the various projects it supports. > > However, once ESUG starts giving chunks of money to particular dialects > directly, then first of all that money is no longer spent across the various > dialects. I would agree with you if ESUG was spending 100% of the money it has. Sponsoring Pharo won't affect other potential sponsoring (unless we get 5 times more sponsoring requests than last year in which case we might not positively answer to all of them). I invite all representatives of other dialects to send the board sponsoring requests. But we can't wait for all dialects to ask for money before spending part of it. > So for an approx. 3000 EUR Pharo membership the board could > sponsor 20 students with 150 EUR each. And while it may be that 15 of those > are indeed Pharo related, there is still sponsorshop done for the remaining > 5 which would fall under the table if the money went directly to Pharo. > That's seems obviously unfair. Please encourage students around you to submit sponsoring requests. We will be really happy to support them. > Secondly, the membership in Pharo is perpetual; if some other project raises > in popularity there will *still* 100% of the money be going to Pharo. For > eternity. That's just as unfair. I agree with you, a permanent sponsorship is probably not the best idea and we should discuss the options. Still, we are not talking about 100% of the money. > There is nothing wrong with sponsoring Pharo projects by ESUG. What's wrong > is giving the money, which would otherwise be spent in some relation to the > popularity of each dialect, to one dialect only. In the past, ESUG supported Squeak e.V. and the Squeak VM. What is the difference? -- Damien Cassou http://damiencassou.seasidehosting.st "Lambdas are relegated to relative obscurity until Java makes them popular by not having them." James Iry

Hi Damien - > On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 3:15 PM, Andreas Raab <Andreas.Raab@gmx.de> wrote: > > Here is how it is unfair: If I understand the basic process of > selecting and > > supporting projects by ESUG, then the distribution of projects > supported by > > ESUG is roughly equivalent to the popularity of the various > communities. > > This seems entirely fair and reasonable to me, and ESUG is doing a good > job > > with the various projects it supports. > > > > However, once ESUG starts giving chunks of money to particular dialects > > directly, then first of all that money is no longer spent across the > various > > dialects. > > > I would agree with you if ESUG was spending 100% of the money it has. > Sponsoring Pharo won't affect other potential sponsoring (unless we > get 5 times more sponsoring requests than last year in which case we > might not positively answer to all of them). I invite all > representatives of other dialects to send the board sponsoring > requests. But we can't wait for all dialects to ask for money before > spending part of it. Which is fine. And perhaps there is a really simple answer then: First, sponsor all the projects that apply to ESUG. If, at the end of year, there is money left, donate it based on the relative distribution of projects over the year. So for example: ESUG budget: 15k Projects: 5 Pharo projects x 1k = 5k 2 Squeak projects x 1k = 2k 1 GST project x 2k = 2k 2 high profile papers x 500 = 1k Over the year you've spent a total of 10k on those projects. If you split (for simplicity) the remaining 5k based on the total sum used by each project (yeah, yeah, I know there other ways of doing this, I'm just making an example) then you would end up with: Pharo: 2.500 EUR Squeak: 1000 EUR GST: 1000 EUR VW: 500 EUR And except from the difficulty of who to give the money to in the case of VW, the entire process is both transparent and fair. And has an incentive for the various dialects to go out and work with ESUG. > > There is nothing wrong with sponsoring Pharo projects by ESUG. What's > wrong > > is giving the money, which would otherwise be spent in some relation to > the > > popularity of each dialect, to one dialect only. > > > In the past, ESUG supported Squeak e.V. and the Squeak VM. What is the > difference? Squeak e.V. is not about developing Squeak as such you can't compare it membership in the Pharo consortium (it would be more like sponsoring a book or so which ESUG certainly does). As for the Squeak VM, first of all I have no clue who got sponsored by ESUG. Probably John Macintosh because I know neither me, nor Ian, nor Eliot, nor David, nor Dan, nor John ever got any support from ESUG. Secondly, (and I'm guessing here since I really don't know who got sponsored for what) I would think that the scope was probably rather specific, i.e., support for this or that Mac feature or somesuch, rather than "oh, just do some Squeak VM development we don't care what it is" which is the style of support for the Pharo consortium. I think sponsoring specific projects is good, it's handing out money without specific goals and targets that I don't like. Cheers,   - Andreas

> And except from the difficulty of who to give the money to in the case of VW, The case for VW is easy you should give it in person to Holger Kleinsorgen for having written the Windows 7 Look ad feel !! @+Maarten,

On 2012-07-05, at 16:13, Andreas Raab wrote: >> In the past, ESUG supported Squeak e.V. and the Squeak VM. What is the >> difference? > > Squeak e.V. is not about developing Squeak as such you can't compare it membership in the Pharo consortium (it would be more like sponsoring a book or so which ESUG certainly does). As for the Squeak VM, first of all I have no clue who got sponsored by ESUG. Probably John Macintosh because I know neither me, nor Ian, nor Eliot, nor David, nor Dan, nor John ever got any support from ESUG. Secondly, (and I'm guessing here since I really don't know who got sponsored for what) I would think that the scope was probably rather specific, i.e., support for this or that Mac feature or somesuch, rather than "oh, just do some Squeak VM development we don't care what it is" which is the style of support for the Pharo consortium. I think sponsoring specific projects is good, it's handing out money without specific goals and targets that I don't like. > > Cheers, > - Andreas ESUG has given quite a bit of money directly to Squeak a couple of years ago (about 2000 Euros, IIRC). We used that mainly to pay for the squeak.org server hosting. And part of John Macintosh's work on the iPhone / iPad VM was sponsored by ESUG, too (but I don't know the details). - Bert -

Maarten Mostert wrote: > > And except from the difficulty of who to give the money > > to in the case of VW, > > The case for VW is easy you should give it in person to Holger > Kleinsorgen for having written the Windows 7 Look and feel !! Great idea! I hadn't been aware of the 100-150€ that ESUG gives out for each research paper or article published on Smalltalk, or about a product made with Smalltalk (http://esug.org/wiki/pier/Promotion, YourArticle, YourPublication). Another category in a similar vein might be YourCode, for things like Holger's Windows 7 Look and Feel. That would be different from YourProject, where you apply for the money beforehand, and different from the Innovation Technology Awards, in that YourCode would be for things that are useful to a large number of Smalltalkers - a framework or similar rather than a complete product. Cheers, Steve

Can we compare figures? We are putting (INRIA and my team 260 K Euros in Pharo so far) and you are worried about 2000, sounds good. You are not worried about 2500 K on summer talk projects that do not deliver but for phaor this is a problem. Look rationale to me. Stef On Jul 5, 2012, at 10:21 AM, Joachim Tuchel (objektfabrik) wrote: > Hi Steph, > > Thank you very much for these insights. > > I must say I am a bit surprised how emotional this discussion gets. Nobody is doubting that the amount and quality of work and passion you and others put into Smalltalk as a community on one side and Pharo on the other are really worth a lot. And of course the success of Pharo is a succes for Smalltalk. We as a Community profit so much from the small and big things hapenning. > > But this whole discussion is about another topic. It is about whether people would like ESUG to spend between 2000 and 4000 Euros per year in support of the Pharo consortium. I think we even haven't heard enough opinions yet to judge what the community thinks. I guess you were prepared for negative responses, so what makes you upset is hopefully not the fact per se, but the rhetorics. > > I think ESUG should support the Pharo project. But ESUG should not seem to be an entity that somewhat guarantees a steady cash flow for Pharo. Let's put it another way: if an ESUG member/sponsor wants to support Pharo in particular, they can always go for a membership or sponsorship in the Pharo Consortium. > > So sponsorship is fine with me, and a cheaper membership level is also fine, even when combined with additional sponsorship (e.g. when the ESUG conference is a financial success and there's more money on the bank than needed), but I fear that a corparate membership level would bring up the question of CoI over and over again, for as long as there are people active in both entities. Which, by itself, is neither bad nor a problem from my standpoint. Thinking of ESUG as "neutral" or "independent" is an illusion, because it will always be run and sponsored by enthusiasts - and an enthusiast cannot be neutral ;-) > > > Joachim > > P.S.: So what did I do for the Smalltalk Community? My company sponsors ESUG for a few years now, and I try to help promote Smalltalk by blogging and trying to motivate VA Smalltalk users (because these are the kind of Smalltalkers I am in touch with most of the time during my day job) to participate in the community. I try to transport the enthusiasm, knowledge and code from the community into legacy Smalltalk projects (again, mostly VAST). You could say I try to build a sub-community in the VAST world that somehow feels quite offline for many reasons. My company has spent quite some time and money on organizing events in which VAST users can find out they are not the last ones on earth. Together with Marten and Sebastian I do the Smalltalk Inspect Podcast, in which we try to cover all Smalltalk dialects and all kinds of topics. I know this still is far less time and passion than what you or Marcus or other Board members put into the Smalltalk community, but I hope this shows that my intention here is to help build and sustain the community, not to troll about the ESUG board. > > "Stéphane Ducasse" <stephane.ducasse@inria.fr> hat am 5. Juli 2012 um 09:30 geschrieben: > > > BTW since everybody wants to give lessons here is our internal process. A board member never votes when he has a > > conflict of interest. For example when a student applies for an article sponsoring (even 150 Euros), if a board member is in the group of the student > > or may have any conflict of interest, the board member does not take part of the discussion or the voting process. > > This is always like that. > > > > Now as a good exercise for our little community, it would be good that everybody check what he did recently not for its own little > > assets (my little program my precious my little business my precious) but for somebody else asset. > > I wrote and edited the seaside book and I should have better wrote something on ruby on rails > > because we earned a ridiculous amount of money and it was 4 years of work (but this does not count) and I pushed so that we get > > all dialects represented, while I could have simply focus on Pharo. > > Similarly, we sponsored conferences like FAST and Smalltalk Solutions, summerTalk projects, user groups and we are systematically promoting Smalltalk. > > > > Now I'm a bit worried about some reactions especially the rhetorical part of them. It seems to me > > that in our community we do not like success - probably because this is better to be the king of a small castle than > > a knight in a kingdom. Personally I would prefer to be able to build graphical system like D3 in Javascript with my Smalltalk but I cannot. So may be Javascript is > > the future of any smart smalltalker. > > > > Personally I want the success of Smalltalk and I built the tools to make it happen. Pharo is one of such tool. We built pharo because the tools in presence > > were not there to push the way we wanted. Just for your information, we are making pharo not for US but for people to be able to > > make money with it. Now if somebody would come, fork pharo and make our dream reality by being better than pharo we would > > be more than happy. Why because doing pharo is a pain. People complain, doing is slow, we have other agendas. > > > > I'm talking with lawyers INRIA since two years for the consortium. INRIA put 180 Keuros for pharo on the table and we are negotiating to get another 60 K. > > Our little team will also put 30 Keuros plus a massive amount of our free hours. Of course smart people can think that this is because this is for us. No it is not, > > we are building pharo for the community. In fact I would like to build other systems than pharo but so far the state of the system > > implementations does not let us experiment (proprietary or old systems), so we are basically forced to build pharo if we want to invent our future. > > May be some people do not want to have a future. But we do. Now you can not trust us or be against it this is your rights. > > > > So it would be a problem that ESUG the organization promoting Smalltalk has a problem > > to pay 2000/4000 Euros, when I see what our group is putting or INRIA. > > Seriously, if this is the case we should really be clear about that and rethink what is ESUG and also probably do something else of our free time. > > > > Stef > > > > > > On Jul 5, 2012, at 8:49 AM, Paolo Bonzini wrote: > > > > > Il 05/07/2012 08:47, Stéphane Ducasse ha scritto: > > >> 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. > > > > > > No Stephane, it's not that. Part of it is just misinformation and I > > > think that was clarified; the other part is just basic handling of > > > conflict of interest, and I think it's in ESUG's interest to keep its > > > usual level of transparency. > > > > > > Paolo > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Esug-list mailing list > > > Esug-list@lists.esug.org > > > http://lists.esug.org/mailman/listinfo/esug-list_lists.esug.org > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Esug-list mailing list > > Esug-list@lists.esug.org > > http://lists.esug.org/mailman/listinfo/esug-list_lists.esug.org > _______________________________________________ > Esug-list mailing list > Esug-list@lists.esug.org > http://lists.esug.org/mailman/listinfo/esug-list_lists.esug.org

On Jul 5, 2012, at 10:30 AM, Joachim Tuchel (objektfabrik) wrote: > I see it like this: The ESUG board asked the community for help in preparation of a decision. If they were absolutely sure, they wouldn't have asked. We should help with input, and some people asked additional questions, hopefully the ansers will help them come up with a final opinion. We asked because we did not want that people over react but at the end this is the inverse that is happening. Stef

Thanks a lot steven for pissing on us. This is fun nobody ever told us anything when the complete board was programming in VW. And nobody told us anything when the complete board was using Squeak. Strange no. And ESUG even manage money for the squeak foundation. But you are welcome. Do you not worry, you are damaging ESUG and this is great. You are an hero. Keep going. Thanks for all these positive energy. Stef On Jul 5, 2012, at 10:35 AM, Steven Kelly wrote: > Since I didn't really see an answer to Michael Haupt's question, about what is the main Smalltalk dialect of the board members, I did a quick Google on their home pages, looking there or on CVs for which Smalltalk is mentioned. Obviously this is not an accurate method, and I'd much rather the board members answered the question - please, please don't get annoyed because Google says this, just tell us what the real situation is. But for what little it's worth: > >> here are the members of the ESUG's board: >> >> President: Stéphane Ducasse <- Pharo >> Treasurer: Luc Fabresse <- Pharo >> Damien Cassou <- Pharo >> Jordi Delgado <- Pharo >> Marcus Denker <- Squeak, Pharo >> Alain Plantec <- Pharo >> Serge Stinckwich <- none on home page, adding various Smalltalk names to the search terms shows several, with Pharo giving most hits > > If that's the impression a casual web browse gives, then even if it is totally and utterly incorrect, hopefully the board can understand why it seems reasonable to members who don't know all the details to mention potential conflicts of interest. > > So, what does it mean that if so many on the board have a Pharo link? First, it's brilliant that these people are active in doing something for a Smalltalk, as well as their great work in ESUG. Second, it's brilliant that Pharo people are active in wider promotion of Smalltalk in general. And third, it's going to be rather difficult to have a sensible vote on the board, and discussions on the members email list may be a little tense :). > > No worries from me, though. I think it's great what ESUG are doing, and great what Pharo is doing. Personally I'd rather not have ESUG sponsor Pharo, but that's just one person's opinion, and hopefully nobody gets upset about it. > > Go Smalltalk! > Steve > > _______________________________________________ > Esug-list mailing list > Esug-list@lists.esug.org > http://lists.esug.org/mailman/listinfo/esug-list_lists.esug.org