The slope of the Isgur-Wise function for ground state mesons is evaluated for
the heavy mass limit of quark models \`a la Bakamjian-Thomas, which has been
previously discussed by us in general terms. A full calculation in various
spectroscopic models with relativistic kinetic energy gives a rather stable
result ρ2≈1, much lower than previous estimates. Attention is
paid to a careful comparison of this result with the ones of QCD fundamental
methods (lattice QCD, QCD sum rules) and with experimental data.Comment: 15 pages, Latex, AMS-LaTe