Björn wrote:
> Is it really necessary to have the distribution in one stream?

Raul responded:
>  I think that that would be a great thing.
>  Essentially, it means that the system is cohesive.

I agree strongly with Raul.  At the very least, the default download should be 
similar to J6, in that you get the engine
(DLL+jconsole), a friendly GUI frontend (GTK), and the standard library.  JHS 
could be optional or a separate download.

J's existing community is still small, and we are still in "recruitment mode", 
and we should be sensitive about a newcomer's first
experience.

>  The official J7 distribution will be a barebones system, 
>  that will be essentially what Jsoftware provides and supports

This statement concerns me.  Will JSoftware not support the standard library?  
Will it not JGTKIDE?   Will it not support JHS?

I can understand if it's JSoftware's *hope* that "the community" will support 
these extras, but I cannot understand if that's
JSoftware's *expectation*.  Again, if only because our community is small.  And 
because we've tried that approach (or similar
approaches) in the past on J subsystems (e.g. inter-J-communication, or the 
"open" J IDE), with limited success.  Though JAL is
inspiring.

If JSoftware wants to go down this road, it might be time to reconsider 
open-sourcing the engine.  Though I don't know how much of
the revenue stream comes from source licenses vs consulting.   

-Dan

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