Hey,
They want themeability and they want the freedom to endlessly customize
thier
desktop. This is something that people have been able to do on Windows
for
years.
well.. this is also a risk of making things complex. Once I was a fan of
super-configurable environments (I remember being an eager AmiPro user
from Lotus... where toolbars and macros where omnipresent and more
powerful than Mr. Gates even started thinking about them) I grew up and
I prefer a reasonable interface, well designed which I can easily
customize to a small extent but not turn up-side-down, since I will just
adapt to it. Thus making things locked and unmodifiable without any
reason is bad, but I wouldn't thrive for total configurability over
everything.
On the other hand, flexibility is not only in the gui and the gui
elements, but it goes also in the file and libraries alyout, the way
things collaborate, startup.... and there gnustep is still quite
"locked".
Also.. there are good counter-examples. The Macintosh and the Zeta
(former BeOS) have, even if one big and one small, strong advocates and
followers. It amazes me how many developers, programs and utilites are
there for Zeta. Yet their configurability is not stellar. I think people
like it for that too.
In macosx 10.0.. you couldn't even move the dock to another place of the
screen. And themes? being able to change the color of some controls, is
that powerful themability (I know macosx can do more, but not by
default)? come on.... yet macos has tons zealots, followers and
developers.
Thus I think that while some color scheming and theming is interesting
and should be accomplished, it is absolutely not a showstopper and I
don't think it is our major problem. it is more of an excuse. People
don't see anything powerful in gnsutep, smell the lack of apps, notice
the lack of polish in many corners and then resort in accusing the looks
and the lack of themes, but I really think this is a shallow analysis.
But this is about more than themeability, among other things it's also
about
the fact that we also need to make it so that GNUstep is friendlier to
people
who aren't experts. Currently installing GNUstep is much harder than
it should
be. Most novices are unable to install all of the dependencies.
well.. although I agree here.. I have two points that we should think
about
1. if you use the Xlib backend as I do... dependencies are really small,
only core graphic libraries that are usually already present (maybe
except for the headers) and xml/xslt stuff.
2. the average user is not going to build gnustep by himself. And he
shouldn't either. Binary packages should be ready for him for his
favourite linux/bsd/solaris/windows/whatever platform. Those tools
usually track dependencies or the packagers take care to note
dependencies on the download pages. This lessens the problem quite a bit.
I am one of the first persons to use a package instead of building
myself if I can, there are thousands of reasons for that. I am also
disturbed when the package is "broken" or "old and I need an unavailable
newer version" and I end up installing things myself.
Change is a fact of life in this industry more than any other. I have
heard
the expression "if airplane technology had advanced as fast as computing
technology, we would all be flying around at lightspeed in little boxes
the
size of a matchbox" many many times.
yes, those things have been told.. Mr. Gates made similar remarks about
cars.
Now, a comment gets ot of the scope of this email... but...
Airplanes got always more efficient, getting faster and consuming less
fuel. And PC's? (when a P4 takes more time to boot and load a big office
suite.. and your mom makes you notice that the old macSE is ready with
an admittedly simple word processor in much less time?)
Airplanes and cars got more and more reliable, requiring little
maintainance...
Airplanes don't give you a message that the system is overloaded when
you turn the stick and let you wait...
Airplanes don't need to be restarted while flying just because "your
airspeed indicator has become unstable, ti has been quit, no other
flight instruments have been affected".
Airplanes go up when you give more throttle and go down if you do the
opposite, they turn left when you want it. Well, we all know you ned to
hit start to shut-down on a famous operating system (and now... on many
dumb desktop emulations of it on unix too).
Although these remarks may be funny, I don't want just to troll. The
message I wanted to convey is that computers and airplanes both
evolved, but in very different ways with different goals. Many reasons
may be behind this, one of them is I think the way competition and the
market of computers evolved. We as an open source project which is not
bound to any commercial institution are free not to make the same
errors. Also just copying mistakes made by others just because "people
are used to them now" would be stupid. If a windows users wants to
migrate to linux without changing his habits, he can go to kde, gnome...
We are, but we need to be more than OpenStep, if the project is to
survive. I,
for one, am not satisfied with just a few users liking our stuff. We
need to
make GNUstep appeal to a larger audience. As I said before there are
some
companies I have spoken to which are interested in porting applications
from
Mac OS X to GNUstep on Linux or Windows. I have seen people hesitate
in using
GNUstep because of it's interface.
well, I agree and I am not writing you wrong. But we have (potentially)
a very wide audience. From serious developers who want a tool for unix
and windows to more geek linux user who want the total customizeable and
colorful desktop and in the middle there is almost everything. Trying to
accomodate evryone by adding features everyone wants might turn out a
big bowl that doesn't fit anyone at the end. This is what I feel is
happening in the gtk/gnome community for example.
In some cases, this might mean integrating features that not everyone
will
like, but if it means more users, then it will mean more developers,
and thus
more apps.
as always, it is a vicious circle :( Anyway things could be integrated
so that they could be disabled for people that are not interested in
them.
now I have written too much already...
cheers,
R
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