I wonder why they're pursuing a proper extension of Scala. Odersky is working with a group in Stanford to make the language even more extensible, in order to enable parallel 'languages' to be implemented as domain specific languages (i.e. as libraries). This seems like a much easier and more fruitful way to popularize Oz (or something Oz-like).

Reference: http://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/150346/files/onl0000031-ch...