Lassi Kortela <xxxxxx@lassi.io> writes:

> I believe a foundation is like a company: a power base that drives its own
> vision. That vision tends to be a mishmash of key people's technical and career
> interests and trendy social causes. All of these motivators prioritize
> short-term interests over long-term ones, and there is tremendous potential for
> a cabal to form.

Foundations are run according to bylaws that can be designed to prevent
that behavior. A well-written set of bylaws would prevent cabals and
ensure that the Foundation solely supports the development of Scheme.

> The current Scheme cabal (pardon the humor), the Steering Committee, does not
> control any assets. This is a very good thing. I believe that separating asset
> holders from opinion shapers is key to the long term health of Scheme.

I agree that, if a Foundation were to be created, their membership
should be separate from those of the Committees and Working Groups.

> Since I tend to be opinionated, I have deliberately sought to spread
> ownership of scheme.org and other projects I'm involved with to people
> with a more neutral disposition.

I don't think that is the best decision-making process. Having opinions
is fine if you are aware of it and can adjust based on that.

> I have suggested a very lightweight formal association in the past for the sole
> purpose of holding key assets. (That's mainly domain names such as scheme.org.)
> It should not make decisions, pool resources, or organize work.

Why not? If decisions are not made, then a decision is still made: to
keep the status quo. And if work is not organized, then work does not
get done (besides work that was going to get done anyway).

> I still believe it will probably be a good idea at some point, but its
> scope must be clearly defined and strictly limited. At the moment
> there is neither animosity nor buzz around scheme.org, so we are not
> in a rush to strengthen its defenses.

There's no buzz or conflict because scheme.org is mostly inactive.

Conflict is inevitable when things happen and is not necessarily bad.
For example, when R6RS/Racket split off. Now there's cool stuff going on
with Racket, and cool stuff going on here. More parentheses for
everyone.

> There seems to be some distrust and a lot of miscommunication around these
> topics. I for one don't sense any acute threat to Scheme, so file this under
> important but not urgent :)

The bus factor of Large, the SRFIs, and Scheme.org is N=1. The Scheme
tracks of conferences are gone or much less active than they once were.
Very little software is being written in portable Scheme. And there is
no way of knowing how much better things could be, because there is such
a hesitance to organize or cooperate.

Have you ever wondered why Scheme is the only language with:
- metaprogramming
- homoiconicity
- producitivity
- ease of implementation

Yet it is still seen as a small "hobbyist" language? There is huge
potential here. It is time to move past the trauma of the R6RS stuff
and trying something new IMO.