Plans for change....
All, I've written up a short list of things that I want GNUstep to accomplish in the year to come: As Chief maintainer, it is up to me to determine the direction of the project. Over the past several years interest in GNUstep has steadily increased, but not nearly by enough. In order to reach a wider audience, GNUstep needs to do a number of things (not necessarily in priority order): 1) Adopt a more modern look. This includes the look of the windows, the color scheme and how the menus are rendered. It's okay to let that old gui go, it's not going to kill you to do so. ;) Users like things to look "good". This is entirely subjective. Personally, I think GNOME and KDE are quite ugly under the best of circumstances. To this end, we need to make integrated theming available in GNUstep and make it easy. 2) Make regular releases. Start courting different distributions to include GNUstep in their package set. Start getting the word out. Start making sure that people KNOW that GNUstep is alive and well. This, I believe, is the main reason why people have the perception that GNUstep is dead. We don't push ourselves hard enough and into enough distributions to be visible enough for people to care. 3) Eliminate the need for GNUstep.sh, either by making GNUstep place it's binaries and libraries in more "standard" places, or by providing an installation procedure 4) Start appealing more to the Mac OS X/Cocoa crowd. While some people disagree with me, I believe that this group IS the group we need to be playing towards. In the past some have advocated that GNUstep be an "OPENSTEP-like" or a "Cocoa-like" environment. While I don't believe that GNUstep should necessarily follow all of the design decisions Apple has made, I believe that it should implement all of the classes which are useful and which are being commonly used in spite of whether or not people personally agree with having that class in GNUstep or not. A good, and recent, example of this is NSToolbar. It's not about us, remember, it's about them... the users and developers USING GNUstep. We are here to make life easier for our users not to make GNUstep into the epitome of "perfect design" by excluding classes we personally don't like. This is not productive and, not to mention, highly subjective. 5) Focus and concentrate on one and only one set of display technologies per platform. We expend way too much time and energy on maintaining mulitple backends (xlib, art and etc) when we really don't have to. For Linux/BSD we have two functional backends and another on the away for cairo. What's the point of this? In my opinion we should complete the cairo backend and deprecate BOTH the xlib and art backends. xlib is hopelessly outdated and libart isn't really supported by anyone anymore. 6) Decide what we are. Yes, that's right. Some people view GNUstep as a desktop, others view GNUstep as a development environment. GNUstep needs to define itself as one or the other. The website says it's a development environment, but it has many aspects which fit the definition of a desktop environment. In truth, I believe it should be both. 7) Make GNUstep friendly with other environments like GNOME, KDE, Windows and etc. Make sure that GNUstep functions sanely in these environments. This might mean that we need to have behaviors for each different environment. How to implement this is unclear, but it's something that I believe would make the user experience better overall. All of this is just for starters. Anyone who is familiar with my work on Gorm knows that I tend to focus intently on things until they succeed. I intend to do the same with this project as a whole. If you have anything to add to or detract from the above, please feel free to comment. I would love to hear all opinions. I, respectfully, ask that you make your comments constructive and avoid flaming. It is also posted here: http://heronsperch.blogspot.com/2006/12/plans-for-change.html Thanks, GJC -- Gregory Casamento ## GNUstep Chief Maintainer ___ Gnustep-dev mailing list Gnustep-dev@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev
Re: Plans for change....
Hi Gregory, good luck as GNUstep maintainer! On 16.12.2006, at 05:10, Gregory John Casamento wrote: 1) Adopt a more modern look. This includes the look of the windows, the color scheme and how the menus are rendered. It's okay to let that old gui go, it's not going to kill you to do so. ;) Users like things to look "good". This is entirely subjective. Personally, I think GNOME and KDE are quite ugly under the best of circumstances. To this end, we need to make integrated theming available in GNUstep and make it easy. As long as the NEXTSTEP look is still available this is OK to me ;-) 3) Eliminate the need for GNUstep.sh, either by making GNUstep place it's binaries and libraries in more "standard" places, or by providing an installation procedure I would strongly prefer the first option, unless GNUstep becomes a full-blown desktop environment... 6) Decide what we are. Yes, that's right. Some people view GNUstep as a desktop, others view GNUstep as a development environment. GNUstep needs to define itself as one or the other. The website says it's a development environment, but it has many aspects which fit the definition of a desktop environment. In truth, I believe it should be both. In either case, if sb wants to use GNUstep as a development environment/cross-platform framework only then IMO there should be no need to have any deamons running in the background, it should just be a simple set of libraries/frameworks/DLLs. This would make adoption a lot easier. Just my $0.01 ... ;-) -Phil -- Philippe C.D. Robert http://www.nice.ch/~phip ___ Gnustep-dev mailing list Gnustep-dev@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev
Re: Plans for change....
Am 16.12.2006 um 05:10 schrieb Gregory John Casamento: All, I've written up a short list of things that I want GNUstep to accomplish in the year to come: As Chief maintainer, it is up to me to determine the direction of the project. . . . 2) Make regular releases. Start courting different distributions to include GNUstep in their package set. Start getting the word out. Start making sure that people KNOW that GNUstep is alive and well. This, I believe, is the main reason why people have the perception that GNUstep is dead. We don't push ourselves hard enough and into enough distributions to be visible enough for people to care. may I, as a part of getting more "press coverage" for GNUstep, submit your mail to slashdot or do you think it is to early for such a step and we should discuss the matter first? regards, Lars ___ Gnustep-dev mailing list Gnustep-dev@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev
Re: Plans for change....
Please submit it to slashdot, if you like. It would be nice to let the community know that things are going to change with this project. -- Gregory Casamento ## GNUstep Chief Maintainer - Original Message From: Lars Sonchocky-Helldorf <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Gregory John Casamento <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: GNUstep Developers Sent: Saturday, December 16, 2006 8:46:15 AM Subject: Re: Plans for change Am 16.12.2006 um 05:10 schrieb Gregory John Casamento: > All, > > I've written up a short list of things that I want GNUstep to > accomplish in the year to come: > > As Chief maintainer, it is up to me to determine the direction of > the project. > . . . > 2) > Make regular releases. Start courting different distributions to > include GNUstep in their package set. Start getting the word out. > Start > making sure that people KNOW that GNUstep is alive and well. This, I > believe, is the main reason why people have the perception that > GNUstep > is dead. We don't push ourselves hard enough and into enough > distributions to be visible enough for people to care. may I, as a part of getting more "press coverage" for GNUstep, submit your mail to slashdot or do you think it is to early for such a step and we should discuss the matter first? regards, Lars ___ Gnustep-dev mailing list Gnustep-dev@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev
Re: Plans for change....
On 16/12/2006, at 5:10, Gregory John Casamento wrote: 1) Adopt a more modern look. I like the original GUI as it has a sober and calm look and I wouldn't mind a new GUI, but there are a lot of imperfections especially in shoddy text placement that makes it look unfinished. It's quite easy to tell the difference between GNUstep and NeXTStep screenshots, just by looking at how carefully text and elements are arranged. Would it not be a good idea to embrace a scheme that says that you keep going with refining a specific feature until it's perfect, before moving on to the next, so it doesn't come back and bite you in the behind later? 7) Make GNUstep friendly with other environments like GNOME, KDE, Windows and etc. Make sure that GNUstep functions sanely in these environments. This might mean that we need to have behaviors for each different environment. How to implement this is unclear, but it's something that I believe would make the user experience better overall. I've been observing GNUstep for some time now and if there's something that I see open source projects suffer from, it's a lack of focus and trying to do too much at the same time. GNUstep is no different in this matter and I think also that is why it has not come any further than it has. Spending time making GNUstep working with Gnome and KDE and all the other desktop environments gives absolutely no advantage to GNUstep at all at this time. It would make sense if GNUstep had a killer office package that Gnome, KDE or Windows users really want to run, but the amount of killer apps are rather limited at this time. Doing this now will show everyone that GNUstep is just trying to play catch up and that the developers are spending their time to make TalkSoup look somewhat integrated into someone else's desktop environment. Is there a future in that? Would developers then start developing for GNUstep? I don't think so. I think it would be much better to focus now on getting a decent desktop environment out of GNUstep powered programs alone. Make a desktop environment that runs flawlessly off an installable live CD, one that shows that GNUstep can give life to a PC all on its own without the help of KDE, Gnome or whatever. It should be a live CD that would allow a user to be productive and creative and would impress other people than just a few objective C developers. When that happens, people will see that it's a system that can be worth learning to develop for and you will get much more notice than doing the other thing. You will stand out of the crowd. The current live CD is the right direction, but it needs a lot more work. I now ask these questions: What was the original goal of NeXT with their OS? Should that goal not also be the same for GNUstep? -- Regards, Henrik Mikael Kristensen ___ Gnustep-dev mailing list Gnustep-dev@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev
Re: Plans for change....
Henrik, > I like the original GUI as it has a sober and calm look and I > wouldn't mind a new GUI, but there are a lot of imperfections > especially in shoddy text placement that makes it look unfinished. > It's quite easy to tell the difference between GNUstep and NeXTStep > screenshots, just by looking at how carefully text and elements are > arranged. If you convert the gui of an application from NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP to GNUstep using nib2gmodel and Gorm it is almost impossible to tell the difference between the two. For example, look at Cenon. This application worked on OPENSTEP for years. It was ported to GNUstep and looks almost exactly the same. Additionally, it is possible to create GUIs which look exactly like those of a NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP application using Gorm. I believe what you might be seeing is a difference between > Would it not be a good idea to embrace a scheme that says that you > keep going with refining a specific feature until it's perfect, > before moving on to the next, so it doesn't come back and bite you in > the behind later? When users, such as yourself, actually take the time to fully define what problems they are seeing, it generally makes it easier to correct the issues. I, personally, am not sure what you're referring to here as the text placement done by the text system works wonderfully. If there is an issue with how that's done, then it would be great if you would report a bug on the bug tracking system so that we can focus on the problem. > I've been observing GNUstep for some time now and if there's > something that I see open source projects suffer from, it's a lack of > focus and trying to do too much at the same time. GNUstep is no > different in this matter and I think also that is why it has not come > any further than it has. I don't think that the list of things that I have enumerated is too much or will cause lack of focus. With sufficient effort all of these things can be done in the next year. > Spending time making GNUstep working with Gnome and KDE and all the > other desktop environments gives absolutely no advantage to GNUstep > at all at this time. It would make sense if GNUstep had a killer > office package that Gnome, KDE or Windows users really want to run, > but the amount of killer apps are rather limited at this time. > Doing this now will show everyone that GNUstep is just trying to play > catch up and that the developers are spending their time to make > TalkSoup look somewhat integrated into someone else's desktop > environment. Is there a future in that? Would developers then start > developing for GNUstep? I don't think so. This is the principle complaint I am hearing from companies I have spoken too about getting their apps working on GNUstep. They love the fact that it can work with Windows or on Linux or on BSD, but they are supremely turned off by the fact that it looks like a gui that was invented in 1985, which is because *it is a gui which was invented in 1985*. And that it completely fails to blend in with any other apps on the platform. > I think it would be much better to focus now on getting a decent > desktop environment out of GNUstep powered programs alone. Make a > desktop environment that runs flawlessly off an installable live CD, > one that shows that GNUstep can give life to a PC all on its own > without the help of KDE, Gnome or whatever. > It should be a live CD that would allow a user to be productive and > creative and would impress other people than just a few objective C > developers. I have found that there is almost no market for this. No one wants yet another specialty OS floating around. For the record there are a number of these out there... * AROS - A reimplementation of Amiga OS * Haiku OS - A reimplementation of BEOS What you are proposing is a distro which is basically just GNUstep as a "re-implementation of OPENSTEP." While this is an interesting idea, and I have thought quite a lot about this, it doesn't help us at all, in my opinion. People would simply go "Oh, look it's a reimplementation of OPENSTEP as it was in 1985" and move on. Will it necessarily impress people, I don't think so. Also, not to mention that the software development companies that I mentioned earlier would *surely* not want to run their apps on a distro which would be a minor subset of the Linux world. > When that happens, people will see that it's a system that can be > worth learning to develop for and you will get much more notice than > doing the other thing. You will stand out of the crowd. > The current live CD is the right direction, but it needs a lot more > work. Part of the problem with the community at this point, is people who lack an open source/free software mentality and would rather point out what they feel is wrong, but lack the time, talent or ability to actually help. If you have the time and the talent, you are
Re: Plans for change....
Hi Gregory, Congratulations on becoming chief maintainer. Thanks for your work so far, and thanks for your commitment to the project. And, of course, thanks to Adam for all of his work as chief maintainer as well. On Fri, 15 Dec 2006 20:10:01 -0800 (PST), Gregory John Casamento <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said: [...] > 3) Eliminate the need for GNUstep.sh, either by making GNUstep place > it's binaries and libraries in more "standard" places, This is what we try to do for Debian, in order to satisfy the Debian Policy (which follows the FHS). Libraries get moved to /usr/lib, headers to /usr/include, architecture-independent files to /usr/share, and symlinks to make everything accessible from the normal *step hierarchy. And we have wrapper scripts in /usr/bin. It's not perfect, but it works, and we don't have any more complaints about policy violations. If you're interested, I can send you fuller details about the exact filesystem layout that we are using. If GNUstep does this sort of thing, I'd be more than happy to add my input wherever needed. > or by providing an installation procedure I'm not sure exactly what you're thinking of in terms of an installation procedure. But it should be fine as long as it can work well with GNU/Linux distributions. Again, I'd be more than happy to help out with this, with my Debian hat on. [...] > 5) Focus and concentrate on one and only one set of display > technologies per platform. We expend way too much time and energy on > maintaining mulitple backends (xlib, art and etc) when we really don't > have to. For Linux/BSD we have two functional backends and another on > the away for cairo. What's the point of this? In my opinion we should > complete the cairo backend and deprecate BOTH the xlib and art > backends. xlib is hopelessly outdated and libart isn't really > supported by anyone anymore. Yes please. ;) (We also need to get printing working properly. Fonts get messed up.) [...] > 7) Make GNUstep friendly with other environments like GNOME, KDE, > Windows and etc. Make sure that GNUstep functions sanely in these > environments. This might mean that we need to have behaviors for each > different environment. How to implement this is unclear, but it's > something that I believe would make the user experience better > overall. And I guess at least part of this would involve becoming involved in the freedesktop.org effort. (Unfortunately, probably not something that I can help out with much.) Although as a whole, this is probably a very tough problem. There are a few very big things that *step does differently. -- Hubert Chan - email & Jabber: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.uhoreg.ca/ PGP/GnuPG key: 1024D/124B61FA (Key available at wwwkeys.pgp.net) Fingerprint: 96C5 012F 5F74 A5F7 1FF7 5291 AF29 C719 124B 61FA ___ Gnustep-dev mailing list Gnustep-dev@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev
Re: Plans for change....
> All, > > I've written up a short list of things that I want GNUstep to accomplish > in the year to come: > > As Chief maintainer, it is up to me to determine the > direction of the project. To me, that sounds very reasonable. Themes are very important. Dynamic layout/sizing like Renaissance does is also very important. I see no real reason to use hardcoded Y/X values like done in NIB files. Dave -- _ _ _(_)(_)_ David Wetzel, Turbocat's Development, (_) __ (_) Buchhorster Strasse 23, D-16567 Muehlenbeck/Berlin, FRG, _/ \_ Fax +49 33056 82835 Phone +49 33056 82834 (__) http://www.turbocat.de/ ___ Gnustep-dev mailing list Gnustep-dev@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev
Re: Plans for change....
On 12/17/06, David Wetzel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > All, > > I've written up a short list of things that I want GNUstep to accomplish > in the year to come: > > As Chief maintainer, it is up to me to determine the > direction of the project. To me, that sounds very reasonable. Themes are very important. Dynamic layout/sizing like Renaissance does is also very important. I see no real reason to use hardcoded Y/X values like done in NIB files. Well, hardcoded position does make localization look better considering the languages are quite different in west and east. Yen-Ju Dave -- _ _ _(_)(_)_ David Wetzel, Turbocat's Development, (_) __ (_) Buchhorster Strasse 23, D-16567 Muehlenbeck/Berlin, FRG, _/ \_ Fax +49 33056 82835 Phone +49 33056 82834 (__) http://www.turbocat.de/ ___ Gnustep-dev mailing list Gnustep-dev@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev ___ Gnustep-dev mailing list Gnustep-dev@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev
Re: Plans for change....
Yen-Ju Chen wrote: > Well, hardcoded position does make localization look better > considering the languages are quite > different in west and east. Wrong, because auto-layout will take care of that. I have seen some Mac Apps that had too big German labels... -- _ _ _(_)(_)_ David Wetzel, Turbocat's Development, (_) __ (_) Buchhorster Strasse 23, D-16567 Muehlenbeck/Berlin, FRG, _/ \_ Fax +49 33056 82835 Phone +49 33056 82834 (__) http://www.turbocat.de/ ___ Gnustep-dev mailing list Gnustep-dev@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev
Re: Plans for change....
On 12/17/06, David Wetzel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Yen-Ju Chen wrote: > Well, hardcoded position does make localization look better > considering the languages are quite > different in west and east. Wrong, because auto-layout will take care of that. I have seen some Mac Apps that had too big German labels... If text is too big, it is because it has no localized nib file. More often, I see labels with too many space behind because Chinese is usually shorter than English. I think this argument falls into the category as the scroll bar should be on the right or left. There is no solution to make everyone happy. Yen-Ju -- _ _ _(_)(_)_ David Wetzel, Turbocat's Development, (_) __ (_) Buchhorster Strasse 23, D-16567 Muehlenbeck/Berlin, FRG, _/ \_ Fax +49 33056 82835 Phone +49 33056 82834 (__) http://www.turbocat.de/ ___ Gnustep-dev mailing list Gnustep-dev@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev
Re: Plans for change....
Yen-Ju Chen wrote: > I think this argument falls into the category as the scroll bar > should be on the right or left. > There is no solution to make everyone happy. Maybe you should read [1]. It is very simple. Scrollers are always parts of a scrollview. A theme can change the layout. This was already possible on slow Amigas so for a true OO environment on much faster machines it should be a piece of cake. [2] [1] http://www.gnustep.it/Renaissance/Screenshots.html [2] http://www.sasg.com/mui/features.html -- _ _ _(_)(_)_ David Wetzel, Turbocat's Development, (_) __ (_) Buchhorster Strasse 23, D-16567 Muehlenbeck/Berlin, FRG, _/ \_ Fax +49 33056 82835 Phone +49 33056 82834 (__) http://www.turbocat.de/ ___ Gnustep-dev mailing list Gnustep-dev@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev
Re: Plans for change....
On 12/17/06, David Wetzel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Yen-Ju Chen wrote: > I think this argument falls into the category as the scroll bar > should be on the right or left. > There is no solution to make everyone happy. Maybe you should read [1]. It is very simple. Scrollers are always parts of a scrollview. A theme can change the layout. This was already possible on slow Amigas so for a true OO environment on much faster machines it should be a piece of cake. [2] I do know Renaissance. I use scroll bar as an example only to show that there is no way to have everyone agree on everything. If GNUstep decide to adapt auto-layout, people from Cocoa may start to complain because they use hard-coded position and their nib file cannot convert to gorm file. If GNUstep support two kind of layouts, it just add more burden on developers and may confuse users. By the way, I remember GNUstep has something like GSVBox and HBox for auto-layout. Personally, I think GNUstep try to please everyone and start to lose its personality. In the end, no one is completely happy. If an application work well, like GNUMail, who care about it is auto-layout or not. Anyway, unless someone plans to write an implementation, there is no use to argue it further. :P Yen-Ju [1] http://www.gnustep.it/Renaissance/Screenshots.html [2] http://www.sasg.com/mui/features.html -- _ _ _(_)(_)_ David Wetzel, Turbocat's Development, (_) __ (_) Buchhorster Strasse 23, D-16567 Muehlenbeck/Berlin, FRG, _/ \_ Fax +49 33056 82835 Phone +49 33056 82834 (__) http://www.turbocat.de/ ___ Gnustep-dev mailing list Gnustep-dev@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev
Re: Plans for change....
This is a news of GTK+ to be ported on Mac natively without X11. http://www.oreillynet.com/mac/blog/2006/12/illuminous_meet_gtk_1.html The interesting part is the comment. I would say the same comment may apply to GNUstep on Windows. If GNUstep doesn't gain popularity on its native platform (Unix, and probably Cocoa), there is no way to gain popularity on other platforms. Yen-Ju ___ Gnustep-dev mailing list Gnustep-dev@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev
Re: Plans for change....
Dave, I have a couple of comments on this, which I've been meaning to say for a while. In the past people have expressed the opinion that "dynamic layout isn't possible in Gorm/Nib files" or, at least, that it can't be handled within IB/Gorm. That statement is patently untrue. Gorm contains classes called editors. The purpose of these classes is to manage the views while they are being edited in the gui. For example, the "button editor" is what allows you to stretch and modify the button without causing the underlying button to be pressed. It does this by wrapping the button in itself as a subview and passing on events to the button instance when needed. This concept can be used to the same effect on dynamically resizable views, such as those used in Renaissance.Additionally, inspectors could be used to tell views, like in Renaissance, whether or not they should care about X/Y coordinates. As I said in my posting regarding the backend we need to focus on one set of technologies for each problem. All of the above being said, a significant amount of Renaissance technology can be used to create classes which will work in the "traditional" Gorm/IB gui editors. I, personally, have not had the time to do this, but it can be done. Later, GJC -- Gregory Casamento ## GNUstep Chief Maintainer - Original Message From: David Wetzel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Gregory John Casamento <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: GNUstep Developers Sent: Sunday, December 17, 2006 4:19:45 AM Subject: Re: Plans for change > All, > > I've written up a short list of things that I want GNUstep to accomplish > in the year to come: > > As Chief maintainer, it is up to me to determine the > direction of the project. To me, that sounds very reasonable. Themes are very important. Dynamic layout/sizing like Renaissance does is also very important. I see no real reason to use hardcoded Y/X values like done in NIB files. Dave -- _ _ _(_)(_)_ David Wetzel, Turbocat's Development, (_) __ (_) Buchhorster Strasse 23, D-16567 Muehlenbeck/Berlin, FRG, _/ \_ Fax +49 33056 82835 Phone +49 33056 82834 (__) http://www.turbocat.de/ ___ Gnustep-dev mailing list Gnustep-dev@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev
Re: Plans for change....
Yen-Ju, > I do know Renaissance. > I use scroll bar as an example only to show > that there is no way to have everyone agree on everything. > If GNUstep decide to adapt auto-layout, > people from Cocoa may start to complain because they use hard-coded position > and their nib file cannot convert to gorm file. > If GNUstep support two kind of layouts, > it just add more burden on developers and may confuse users. > By the way, I remember GNUstep has something like GSVBox and HBox > for auto-layout. If someone wants to use Renaissance for autolayout or to create a set of palettes for Gorm and a new library which handles autolayout for both OSX and GNUstep (which I suggested in a previous email) then they are free to do that. The GUI classes (NSWindow, NSView, et al) should never implement auto-layout. This should, like in Renaissance, be handled by another set of classes. I, personally, don't see much value in auto-layout, because GNUstep/OPENSTEP provides the user with a way to have a GUI for each locale, so that you can specifically tailor your GUI to each, but to each his own. > Personally, I think GNUstep try to please everyone > and start to lose its personality. > In the end, no one is completely happy. > If an application work well, like GNUMail, > who care about it is auto-layout or not. This is what I'm trying to correct. For too long GNUstep has not had well defined goals. I'm trying to give it one: become a really great multiplatform development environment. If someone wants to create a desktop (Etiole/GAP/Backbone) and/or an OS (such as the LiveCD) they are free to do this, but GNUstep's focus needs to be on it's development environment and API. Currently, GNUstep has only one real desktop app which comes with it and that is GWorkspace. GWorkspace is not required to be installed to use GNUstep. Later, GJC -- Gregory Casamento ## GNUstep Chief Maintainer - Original Message From: Yen-Ju Chen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: David Wetzel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: gnustep-dev@gnu.org Sent: Sunday, December 17, 2006 5:21:27 PM Subject: Re: Plans for change On 12/17/06, David Wetzel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Yen-Ju Chen wrote: > > > I think this argument falls into the category as the scroll bar > > should be on the right or left. > > There is no solution to make everyone happy. > > Maybe you should read [1]. > It is very simple. Scrollers are always parts of a scrollview. A theme can > change the layout. > This was already possible on slow Amigas so for a true OO environment on much > faster machines it > should be a piece of cake. [2] I do know Renaissance. I use scroll bar as an example only to show that there is no way to have everyone agree on everything. If GNUstep decide to adapt auto-layout, people from Cocoa may start to complain because they use hard-coded position and their nib file cannot convert to gorm file. If GNUstep support two kind of layouts, it just add more burden on developers and may confuse users. By the way, I remember GNUstep has something like GSVBox and HBox for auto-layout. Personally, I think GNUstep try to please everyone and start to lose its personality. In the end, no one is completely happy. If an application work well, like GNUMail, who care about it is auto-layout or not. Anyway, unless someone plans to write an implementation, there is no use to argue it further. :P Yen-Ju > > > [1] http://www.gnustep.it/Renaissance/Screenshots.html > [2] http://www.sasg.com/mui/features.html > > -- >_ _ > _(_)(_)_ David Wetzel, Turbocat's Development, > (_) __ (_) Buchhorster Strasse 23, D-16567 Muehlenbeck/Berlin, FRG, > _/ \_ Fax +49 33056 82835 Phone +49 33056 82834 > (__) http://www.turbocat.de/ > > ___ Gnustep-dev mailing list Gnustep-dev@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev ___ Gnustep-dev mailing list Gnustep-dev@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev
Re: Plans for change....
Gregory John Casamento wrote: [...] > I, personally, don't see much value in auto-layout, because > GNUstep/OPENSTEP provides the user with a way to have a GUI for each > locale, so that you can specifically tailor your GUI to each, but to > each his own. Well, it's not just about localization. If you change fonts, it may break the layout as well. But yes, as you say, to each his own. -- Hubert Chan - email & Jabber: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.uhoreg.ca/ PGP/GnuPG key: 1024D/124B61FA (Key available at wwwkeys.pgp.net) Fingerprint: 96C5 012F 5F74 A5F7 1FF7 5291 AF29 C719 124B 61FA ___ Gnustep-dev mailing list Gnustep-dev@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev
Re: Plans for change....
On Dec 18, 2006, at 11:46 AM, Hubert Chan wrote: Gregory John Casamento wrote: [...] I, personally, don't see much value in auto-layout, because GNUstep/OPENSTEP provides the user with a way to have a GUI for each locale, so that you can specifically tailor your GUI to each, but to each his own. Well, it's not just about localization. If you change fonts, it may break the layout as well. It's hard to fully cater to Linux/X-Windows everything-configurable mentality using a system designed for use with specified fonts present on every system (NeXTstep, Mac OS X). Giving up this configurability may be best for compatibility with Cocoa apps and that style of development (WYSIWUG from IB/Gorm to user desktop). If a single X backend becomes standard, we could bundle a sans-serif font with it that is ALWAYS used for dialogs, etc., as Lucida Grande on Mac OS (and Ohlfs on NeXT/OpenStep). This would work for Latin text, at least, and we might be able to use Deja Vu or something like that for non-Latin. ___ Gnustep-dev mailing list Gnustep-dev@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev
Re: Plans for change....
Gregory John Casamento wrote: All, I've written up a short list of things that I want GNUstep to accomplish in the year to come: As Chief maintainer, it is up to me to determine the direction of the project. Over the past several years interest in GNUstep has steadily increased, but not nearly by enough. In order to reach a wider audience, GNUstep needs to do a number of things (not necessarily in priority order): 1) Adopt a more modern look. This includes the look of the windows, the color scheme and how the menus are rendered. It's okay to let that old gui go, it's not going to kill you to do so. ;) Users like things to look "good". This is entirely subjective. Personally, I think GNOME and KDE are quite ugly under the best of circumstances. To this end, we need to make integrated theming available in GNUstep and make it easy. *does a happy-dance* 3) Eliminate the need for GNUstep.sh, either by making GNUstep place it's binaries and libraries in more "standard" places, or by providing an installation procedure *bursts into a jig* 5) Focus and concentrate on one and only one set of display technologies per platform. We expend way too much time and energy on maintaining mulitple backends (xlib, art and etc) when we really don't have to. For Linux/BSD we have two functional backends and another on the away for cairo. What's the point of this? In my opinion we should complete the cairo backend and deprecate BOTH the xlib and art backends. xlib is hopelessly outdated and libart isn't really supported by anyone anymore. That's right,let cairo do the heavy lifting for us. Way more people working on it than on GNUstep, so we get backends for "free" effectively, once we have good support for Cairo (not to mention nice hardware acceleration, where available) 6) Decide what we are. Yes, that's right. Some people view GNUstep as a desktop, others view GNUstep as a development environment. GNUstep needs to define itself as one or the other. The website says it's a development environment, but it has many aspects which fit the definition of a desktop environment. In truth, I believe it should be both. It's a floor wax, AND a dessert-topping! (for non-Americans on the list, please excuse the semi-obscure mid-70s Saturday Night Live reference) and/or see http://snltranscripts.jt.org/75/75ishimmer.phtml Nice to finally see some benevolent dictatorship going on! I guess it's tmie to make some faux-Che Guevara shirts with Greg on them ;-) (inspired by http://www.threadless.com/submission/101790/che_bacca ) Regards, Alex Perez ___ Gnustep-dev mailing list Gnustep-dev@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev
Re: Plans for change.... (minor correct of previous post)
Minor additions/corrections here... "Additionally, it is possible to create GUIs which look exactly like those of a NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP application using Gorm. I believe what you might be seeing is a difference between" ... personal styles of some develpers and those by developers back when NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP was popular. Also, minor correction to this comment.. "OPENSTEP was made to act/look like the OS it was on" this was true of Windows, but it was not true of Solaris. What was done on Solaris was to create a window manager which would allow for integration between OPENSTEP apps on Solaris and open look and other apps. BTW... one thing that I should mention OPENSTEP1.1/Solaris should not be confused with OPENSTEP 4.2/Mach on SPARC. They are often confused and are not the same thing. :) Later, GJC -- Gregory Casamento ## GNUstep Chief Maintainer - Original Message From: Gregory John Casamento <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Henrik Mikael Kristensen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; GNUstep Developers Sent: Saturday, December 16, 2006 5:15:30 PM Subject: Re: Plans for change Henrik, > I like the original GUI as it has a sober and calm look and I > wouldn't mind a new GUI, but there are a lot of imperfections > especially in shoddy text placement that makes it look unfinished. > It's quite easy to tell the difference between GNUstep and NeXTStep > screenshots, just by looking at how carefully text and elements are > arranged. If you convert the gui of an application from NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP to GNUstep using nib2gmodel and Gorm it is almost impossible to tell the difference between the two. For example, look at Cenon. This application worked on OPENSTEP for years. It was ported to GNUstep and looks almost exactly the same. Additionally, it is possible to create GUIs which look exactly like those of a NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP application using Gorm. I believe what you might be seeing is a difference between > Would it not be a good idea to embrace a scheme that says that you > keep going with refining a specific feature until it's perfect, > before moving on to the next, so it doesn't come back and bite you in > the behind later? When users, such as yourself, actually take the time to fully define what problems they are seeing, it generally makes it easier to correct the issues. I, personally, am not sure what you're referring to here as the text placement done by the text system works wonderfully. If there is an issue with how that's done, then it would be great if you would report a bug on the bug tracking system so that we can focus on the problem. > I've been observing GNUstep for some time now and if there's > something that I see open source projects suffer from, it's a lack of > focus and trying to do too much at the same time. GNUstep is no > different in this matter and I think also that is why it has not come > any further than it has. I don't think that the list of things that I have enumerated is too much or will cause lack of focus. With sufficient effort all of these things can be done in the next year. > Spending time making GNUstep working with Gnome and KDE and all the > other desktop environments gives absolutely no advantage to GNUstep > at all at this time. It would make sense if GNUstep had a killer > office package that Gnome, KDE or Windows users really want to run, > but the amount of killer apps are rather limited at this time. > Doing this now will show everyone that GNUstep is just trying to play > catch up and that the developers are spending their time to make > TalkSoup look somewhat integrated into someone else's desktop > environment. Is there a future in that? Would developers then start > developing for GNUstep? I don't think so. This is the principle complaint I am hearing from companies I have spoken too about getting their apps working on GNUstep. They love the fact that it can work with Windows or on Linux or on BSD, but they are supremely turned off by the fact that it looks like a gui that was invented in 1985, which is because *it is a gui which was invented in 1985*. And that it completely fails to blend in with any other apps on the platform. > I think it would be much better to focus now on getting a decent > desktop environment out of GNUstep powered programs alone. Make a > desktop environment that runs flawlessly off an installable live CD, > one that shows that GNUstep can give life to a PC all on its own > without the help of KDE, Gnome or whatever. > It should be a live CD that would allow a user to be productive and > creative and would impress other people than just a few objective C > developers. I have found that there is almost no market for this. No one wants yet another specialty OS f
Re: Plans for change.... (minor correct of previous post)
On 16.12.2006, at 23:24, Gregory John Casamento wrote: I now ask these questions: What was the original goal of NeXT with their OS? Should that goal not also be the same for GNUstep? The original goal of OPENSTEP was to create a crossplatform set of libraries which could be easily used. These platforms consisted of Windows (OPENSTEP Enterprise 4.2/Windows), Solaris (OPENSTEP 1.1/ Solaris), & Mach (OPENSTEP 4.2/Mach) were the implementations of this created by Sun and NeXT while NeXT was still in business. There were proposals to have an OPENSTEP implemented under HP-UX on the PA-RISC architecture, but that didn't happen prior to the buyout by Apple. On each one of these platforms, mainly windows, OPENSTEP was made to look/act like the operating system it was on. As you can see, GNUstep's purpose is *precisely* the same as OPENSTEP's. And NeXT clearly failed with this strategy ;-) I guess the difficulty here is that there are some who understand GNUstep as something like OPENSTEP Mach 4.x, an entire OS or at least desktop environment running on a Unix/Linux OS, whereas there are others who understand GNUstep as an implementation of the OpenStep API specification (with some - but not all - Cocoa additions/changes) which integrates seamlessly into its host system. In this case a Windows port is what probably matters most (business wise). Right now GNUstep is a mix of both which makes nobody completely happy. -Phil -- Philippe C.D. Robert http://www.nice.ch/~phip ___ Gnustep-dev mailing list Gnustep-dev@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev
Re: Plans for change.... (minor correct of previous post)
On 17/12/2006, at 23:10, Philippe C.D. Robert wrote: On 16.12.2006, at 23:24, Gregory John Casamento wrote: I now ask these questions: What was the original goal of NeXT with their OS? Should that goal not also be the same for GNUstep? The original goal of OPENSTEP was to create a crossplatform set of libraries which could be easily used. These platforms consisted of Windows (OPENSTEP Enterprise 4.2/Windows), Solaris (OPENSTEP 1.1/ Solaris), & Mach (OPENSTEP 4.2/Mach) were the implementations of this created by Sun and NeXT while NeXT was still in business. There were proposals to have an OPENSTEP implemented under HP-UX on the PA-RISC architecture, but that didn't happen prior to the buyout by Apple. On each one of these platforms, mainly windows, OPENSTEP was made to look/act like the operating system it was on. As you can see, GNUstep's purpose is *precisely* the same as OPENSTEP's. And NeXT clearly failed with this strategy ;-) Ah, the answer I expected from the question was the original goal set by NeXT for their first products. The original goal was to make a high quality workstation usable by science institutions, universities, students and also in enterprises, I believe. What they did was price the machinery out of the range for precisely those customers to buy them. Had they not done that back in 88, they would probably have gained more foothold than they did. I don't think OPENSTEP particularly failed, but Windows was already gaining too much marketshare for OPENSTEP based desktops to catch up and the technology that it had, didn't matter that much anymore to the customers. I guess the difficulty here is that there are some who understand GNUstep as something like OPENSTEP Mach 4.x, an entire OS or at least desktop environment running on a Unix/Linux OS, whereas there are others who understand GNUstep as an implementation of the OpenStep API specification (with some - but not all - Cocoa additions/changes) which integrates seamlessly into its host system. In this case a Windows port is what probably matters most (business wise). Right now GNUstep is a mix of both which makes nobody completely happy. Yes, this is also the way I see it. I'm just looking at it from one side where Gregory wants it to be on the other side. I guess there is a big difference in goals with the early NeXTstep OS, which is what I would go for and the OPENSTEP goals which is what Gregory wants. The reason for my opinion is, I'm looking at the current state of Linux desktops and where MacOSX seems to be going. Being a Mac user on a daily basis, Windows user second, Linux user third and Amiga user fourth, it looks to me that MacOSX is going to be the big winner in terms of richness and power of its technology and the leverage that developers have to create new kinds of applications very quickly. MacOSX certainly doesn't need any of the others to do well. MacOSX works on its own, most likely due to smart and disciplined people, many of those working at Apple. A crap load of money also helps a bit, of course. :-) Linux desktops on the other hand are a mess. They are moving along, but very slowly and Gnome still doesn't appear to be polished with many features as crippled and defective as they were when they were introduced 4 and a half years ago in Gnome 2.0. In the case of KDE, it has a much better foundation, but severe usability issues and "featuritis", IMHO. Those two are the Linux desktop that have the greatest momentum, and they are both doing very badly at conquering market shares, because MacOSX is going to steal the show as the true alternative to Windows. Think about that. I would just like to see GNUstep technology available in its own and purest form to create a very different desktop without compromise on standard PCs. Gregory mentions somewhere else in this thread that such stand alone projects are never successful, such as AROS and Haiku OS. I think this is because developers are not catered for properly as is the case with GNUstep. Without developers, these projects are quietly strangled to death. They will never grow popular beyond a very small group of fans. There is also the "nice toy" effect to overcome (boy, that looks really nice, but can we go back to Windows again?), something that is very common in small projects that deal with new/different technologies. I struggle with that every day when using REBOL for my development activities. Who in their right mind would use AROS in a serious company environment for critical tasks? None of these projects have a "serious flavor" to them, while GNUstep has, being already in use in companies for serious custom applications. I think it's possible to create a true stand alone desktop and development system with GNUstep in a way that none of the others really can. -- Regards, Henrik Mikael Kristensen _
Re: Plans for change.... (minor correct of previous post)
> And NeXT clearly failed with this strategy ;-) To go into all of the reasons why NeXT failed is beyond the scope of this email. But, suffice it to say, it wasn't this strategy that failed them, it was the idea that you could charge $10,000.00 per machine and $5,000 per development seat and be profitable. :) For more on why my above statement is true, please read "The Second Coming of Steve Jobs" and perhaps that will clarify things. > I guess the difficulty here is that there are some who understand > GNUstep as something like OPENSTEP Mach 4.x, an entire OS or at least > desktop environment running on a Unix/Linux OS, whereas there are > others who understand GNUstep as an implementation of the OpenStep > API specification (with some - but not all - Cocoa additions/changes) > which integrates seamlessly into its host system. In this case a > Windows port is what probably matters most (business wise). Right now > GNUstep is a mix of both which makes nobody completely happy. GNUstep is a development environment and a minimal desktop. The GNUstep project shall not create a distribution so that we can have yet another niche OS such as AROS or HaikuOS. Later, GJC -- Gregory Casamento ## GNUstep Chief Maintainer - Original Message From: Philippe C.D. Robert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Gregory John Casamento <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: Henrik Mikael Kristensen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; GNUstep Developers Sent: Sunday, December 17, 2006 5:10:04 PM Subject: Re: Plans for change (minor correct of previous post) On 16.12.2006, at 23:24, Gregory John Casamento wrote: >> I now ask these questions: What was the original goal of NeXT with >> their OS? Should that goal not also be the same for GNUstep? > > The original goal of OPENSTEP was to create a crossplatform set of > libraries which could be easily used. These platforms consisted of > Windows (OPENSTEP Enterprise 4.2/Windows), Solaris (OPENSTEP 1.1/ > Solaris), & > Mach (OPENSTEP 4.2/Mach) were the implementations of this created by > Sun and NeXT while NeXT was still in business. There were > proposals to > have an OPENSTEP implemented under HP-UX on the PA-RISC architecture, > but that didn't happen prior to the buyout by Apple. On each one > of these > platforms, mainly windows, OPENSTEP was made to look/act like the > operating > system it was on. As you can see, GNUstep's purpose is > *precisely* the same > as OPENSTEP's. And NeXT clearly failed with this strategy ;-) I guess the difficulty here is that there are some who understand GNUstep as something like OPENSTEP Mach 4.x, an entire OS or at least desktop environment running on a Unix/Linux OS, whereas there are others who understand GNUstep as an implementation of the OpenStep API specification (with some - but not all - Cocoa additions/changes) which integrates seamlessly into its host system. In this case a Windows port is what probably matters most (business wise). Right now GNUstep is a mix of both which makes nobody completely happy. -Phil -- Philippe C.D. Robert http://www.nice.ch/~phip ___ Gnustep-dev mailing list Gnustep-dev@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev
Re: Plans for change.... (minor correct of previous post)
Nothing prevents someone from taking GNUstep and creating a complete environment. This has been done in the form of the GNUstep LiveCD. It demonstrates exactly what I'm talking about. All I'm saying is that GNUstep has one and only one goal, and that is to be as good a development environment and API as possible. GJC -- Gregory Casamento ## GNUstep Chief Maintainer - Original Message From: Henrik Mikael Kristensen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: GNUstep Developers Sent: Sunday, December 17, 2006 7:07:15 PM Subject: Re: Plans for change (minor correct of previous post) On 17/12/2006, at 23:10, Philippe C.D. Robert wrote: > On 16.12.2006, at 23:24, Gregory John Casamento wrote: >>> I now ask these questions: What was the original goal of NeXT with >>> their OS? Should that goal not also be the same for GNUstep? >> >> The original goal of OPENSTEP was to create a crossplatform set of >> libraries which could be easily used. These platforms consisted of >> Windows (OPENSTEP Enterprise 4.2/Windows), Solaris (OPENSTEP 1.1/ >> Solaris), & >> Mach (OPENSTEP 4.2/Mach) were the implementations of this created by >> Sun and NeXT while NeXT was still in business. There were >> proposals to >> have an OPENSTEP implemented under HP-UX on the PA-RISC architecture, >> but that didn't happen prior to the buyout by Apple. On each one >> of these >> platforms, mainly windows, OPENSTEP was made to look/act like the >> operating >> system it was on. As you can see, GNUstep's purpose is >> *precisely* the same >> as OPENSTEP's. > > And NeXT clearly failed with this strategy ;-) Ah, the answer I expected from the question was the original goal set by NeXT for their first products. The original goal was to make a high quality workstation usable by science institutions, universities, students and also in enterprises, I believe. What they did was price the machinery out of the range for precisely those customers to buy them. Had they not done that back in 88, they would probably have gained more foothold than they did. I don't think OPENSTEP particularly failed, but Windows was already gaining too much marketshare for OPENSTEP based desktops to catch up and the technology that it had, didn't matter that much anymore to the customers. > I guess the difficulty here is that there are some who understand > GNUstep as something like OPENSTEP Mach 4.x, an entire OS or at > least desktop environment running on a Unix/Linux OS, whereas there > are others who understand GNUstep as an implementation of the > OpenStep API specification (with some - but not all - Cocoa > additions/changes) which integrates seamlessly into its host > system. In this case a Windows port is what probably matters most > (business wise). Right now GNUstep is a mix of both which makes > nobody completely happy. Yes, this is also the way I see it. I'm just looking at it from one side where Gregory wants it to be on the other side. I guess there is a big difference in goals with the early NeXTstep OS, which is what I would go for and the OPENSTEP goals which is what Gregory wants. The reason for my opinion is, I'm looking at the current state of Linux desktops and where MacOSX seems to be going. Being a Mac user on a daily basis, Windows user second, Linux user third and Amiga user fourth, it looks to me that MacOSX is going to be the big winner in terms of richness and power of its technology and the leverage that developers have to create new kinds of applications very quickly. MacOSX certainly doesn't need any of the others to do well. MacOSX works on its own, most likely due to smart and disciplined people, many of those working at Apple. A crap load of money also helps a bit, of course. :-) Linux desktops on the other hand are a mess. They are moving along, but very slowly and Gnome still doesn't appear to be polished with many features as crippled and defective as they were when they were introduced 4 and a half years ago in Gnome 2.0. In the case of KDE, it has a much better foundation, but severe usability issues and "featuritis", IMHO. Those two are the Linux desktop that have the greatest momentum, and they are both doing very badly at conquering market shares, because MacOSX is going to steal the show as the true alternative to Windows. Think about that. I would just like to see GNUstep technology available in its own and purest form to create a very different desktop without compromise on standard PCs. Gregory mentions somewhere else in this thread that such stand alone projects are never successful, such as AROS and Haiku OS. I think this is because developers are not catered for properly as is the case wit
Re: Plans for change.... (minor correct of previous post)
On 12/18/06, Henrik Mikael Kristensen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: On 17/12/2006, at 23:10, Philippe C.D. Robert wrote: > On 16.12.2006, at 23:24, Gregory John Casamento wrote: >>> I now ask these questions: What was the original goal of NeXT with >>> their OS? Should that goal not also be the same for GNUstep? >> >> The original goal of OPENSTEP was to create a crossplatform set of >> libraries which could be easily used. These platforms consisted of >> Windows (OPENSTEP Enterprise 4.2/Windows), Solaris (OPENSTEP 1.1/ >> Solaris), & >> Mach (OPENSTEP 4.2/Mach) were the implementations of this created by >> Sun and NeXT while NeXT was still in business. There were >> proposals to >> have an OPENSTEP implemented under HP-UX on the PA-RISC architecture, >> but that didn't happen prior to the buyout by Apple. On each one >> of these >> platforms, mainly windows, OPENSTEP was made to look/act like the >> operating >> system it was on. As you can see, GNUstep's purpose is >> *precisely* the same >> as OPENSTEP's. > > And NeXT clearly failed with this strategy ;-) Ah, the answer I expected from the question was the original goal set by NeXT for their first products. The original goal was to make a high quality workstation usable by science institutions, universities, students and also in enterprises, I believe. What they did was price the machinery out of the range for precisely those customers to buy them. Had they not done that back in 88, they would probably have gained more foothold than they did. I don't think OPENSTEP particularly failed, but Windows was already gaining too much marketshare for OPENSTEP based desktops to catch up and the technology that it had, didn't matter that much anymore to the customers. > I guess the difficulty here is that there are some who understand > GNUstep as something like OPENSTEP Mach 4.x, an entire OS or at > least desktop environment running on a Unix/Linux OS, whereas there > are others who understand GNUstep as an implementation of the > OpenStep API specification (with some - but not all - Cocoa > additions/changes) which integrates seamlessly into its host > system. In this case a Windows port is what probably matters most > (business wise). Right now GNUstep is a mix of both which makes > nobody completely happy. Yes, this is also the way I see it. I'm just looking at it from one side where Gregory wants it to be on the other side. I guess there is a big difference in goals with the early NeXTstep OS, which is what I would go for and the OPENSTEP goals which is what Gregory wants. The reason for my opinion is, I'm looking at the current state of Linux desktops and where MacOSX seems to be going. Being a Mac user on a daily basis, Windows user second, Linux user third and Amiga user fourth, it looks to me that MacOSX is going to be the big winner in terms of richness and power of its technology and the leverage that developers have to create new kinds of applications very quickly. MacOSX certainly doesn't need any of the others to do well. MacOSX works on its own, most likely due to smart and disciplined people, many of those working at Apple. A crap load of money also helps a bit, of course. :-) Linux desktops on the other hand are a mess. They are moving along, but very slowly and Gnome still doesn't appear to be polished with many features as crippled and defective as they were when they were introduced 4 and a half years ago in Gnome 2.0. In the case of KDE, it has a much better foundation, but severe usability issues and "featuritis", IMHO. Those two are the Linux desktop that have the greatest momentum, and they are both doing very badly at conquering market shares, because MacOSX is going to steal the show as the true alternative to Windows. Think about that. I would just like to see GNUstep technology available in its own and purest form to create a very different desktop without compromise on standard PCs. Gregory mentions somewhere else in this thread that such stand alone projects are never successful, such as AROS and Haiku OS. I think this is because developers are not catered for properly as is the case with GNUstep. Without developers, these projects are quietly strangled to death. They will never grow popular beyond a very small group of fans. There is also the "nice toy" effect to overcome (boy, that looks really nice, but can we go back to Windows again?), something that is very common in small projects that deal with new/different technologies. I struggle with that every day when using REBOL for my development activities. Who in their right mind would use AROS in a serious company environment for critical tasks? None of these projects have a "serious flavor" to them, while GNUstep has, being already in use in companies for serious custom applications. I think it's possible to create a true stand alone desktop and development system with GNUstep in a way that none of the others really can. -- Regards, Henrik Mikael Kristense
Re: Plans for change.... (minor correct of previous post)
Hmmm.. On 18.12.2006, at 02:57, Gregory John Casamento wrote: And NeXT clearly failed with this strategy ;-) To go into all of the reasons why NeXT failed is beyond the scope of this email. But, suffice it to say, it wasn't this strategy that failed them, it was the idea that you could charge $10,000.00 per machine and $5,000 per development seat and be profitable. :) You misunderstood me ;-) I was saying that NeXT failed with the OpenStep strategy! This never really took off, especially after SUN dropped their OPENSTEP effort. NeXT was successful with the NEXTSTEP 3.x OS (or OPENSTEP Mach 4.x that is) and WebObjects/EOF. -Phil -- Philippe C.D. Robert http://www.nice.ch/~phip ___ Gnustep-dev mailing list Gnustep-dev@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev
Re: Plans for change.... (minor correct of previous post)
Philippe, I understood you perfectly, but I'm not sure you're getting me, so I'll explain: I think that saying "NeXT failed with the OpenStep strategy!" is severely paraphrasing reality. NeXT didn't have a chance to succeed with this strategy, since: 1) Sun had started working on Java WHILE they were working on OpenStep and 2) NeXT was already going out of business because of many bad business decisions of Steve Jobs. Jobs had the opportunity to put NS/OS for Mach on Dell machines as one of the choices FROM DELL and he turned it down. A similar offer was made to allow NS/OS be the default on IBM's RS/6000 series of machines, but he decided to keep IBM one version behind and soak them for licensing fees for each subsequent version because he was so focused on NeXT's hardware business. So IBM told NeXT to go screw itself. NeXT also had the opportunity to get Microsoft's set of productivity apps on OPENSTEP, but Steve decided it would be fun to make Bill Gates wait for three hours before telling him he was too busy and "could they do it another day." When asked during an interview Bill Gates said "Write software for the NeXT platform? No, I'll piss on it." NeXT was not solely focused on making OpenStep into all it could be. They were more concerned with staying in business. Had they gotten any one of the deals that I mentioned above, NeXT would have had the resources to make OpenStep succeed. The success or failure of an idea in this industry has as much to do with who is pushing it as much as what is being pushed. The fact that NeXT failed to make OpenStep into a successful crossplatform development environment, does not diminish the efficacy of the idea. Later, GJC -- Gregory Casamento ## GNUstep Chief Maintainer - Original Message From: Philippe C.D. Robert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Gregory John Casamento <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: GNUstep Developers Sent: Monday, December 18, 2006 1:01:49 PM Subject: Re: Plans for change (minor correct of previous post) Hmmm.. On 18.12.2006, at 02:57, Gregory John Casamento wrote: >> And NeXT clearly failed with this strategy ;-) > > To go into all of the reasons why NeXT failed is beyond the scope of > this email. But, suffice it to say, it wasn't this strategy that > failed them, > it was the idea that you could charge $10,000.00 per machine and > $5,000 > per development seat and be profitable. :) You misunderstood me ;-) I was saying that NeXT failed with the OpenStep strategy! This never really took off, especially after SUN dropped their OPENSTEP effort. NeXT was successful with the NEXTSTEP 3.x OS (or OPENSTEP Mach 4.x that is) and WebObjects/EOF. -Phil -- Philippe C.D. Robert http://www.nice.ch/~phip ___ Gnustep-dev mailing list Gnustep-dev@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/gnustep-dev
