Re: GNUstep roadmap (was Re: [Suggestion] GNUstep-test for quality control)

[Helge Hess]

On Wednesday, October 22, 2003, at 10:33 AM, Chad Hardin wrote:
> I see GNUstep a little differently than most of the GNUstep 
> developers; I see it as a opportunity to create a desktop system which 
> people will actually want to use, not be forced to.

:-)

> We have KDE and GNOME, and although a lot of really admirable work has 
> been put into them, the interface is still basically a Windows clone, 
> in the UI sense.

Hm, well, XD2 looks much more like Aqua than GNUstep. I agree that KDE 
is pretty much focused on being a Windows clone. I think it is a 
misconception that other people are not aware of MacOSX and are not 
realizing what is good about it. And I find a lot of those ideas in 
GNOME.

> i am seeing a relatively large move to OS X, because of it's UI.  I 
> like OS X a lot and use it everyday, but the hardware is fairly 
> expensive, which limits many people of the world to using: old 
> versions of Windows, pirated newer copies of windows, or KDE and 
> GNOME.  I think there is room for improvement in this arena and I 
> would like to fill that gap with a GNUstep based Desktop OS.

Hm. I think this is also a "technology-view" misconception. I think to 
an average user the Windows XP UI or XD2 looks almost as good as OSX. 
The reason why people jump on Apple is IMHO because they get a system 
which "just works" (tm). This is not only about software, but also 
about hardware and can't be accomplished with stock items.

Sample: just got a mail from my brother who bought a WLAN card for his 
Windows notebook. He asked how to configure that thing. Well, with 
Apple you just drop the Airport card in the slot and it just works! 
This is no magic, its just because there is exactly one piece of WLAN 
card to be supported.
Basically MacOSX/Apple is the only system I know which really works 
well with Notebooks. And certainly the only Unix system which does.

To shorten: MacOSX isn't popular because of AppKit being used as the 
programming library. This is certainly one piece of the puzzle, but 
only the whole thing (or 95%) does the actual effect.

> > 2. Many programs do not use AppKit. E. g. servers and Web-programs.
> I know, there is a shortage of GNUstep apps, but you gotta admit that 
> a LOT of progress has been made this year!

I agree. I'm *really* impressed!

> I do it for fun too.  In real life I'm a Chinese linguist trying to 
> finish my BS.  When that is done I can hopefully move in to the C.S. 
> world (My programmer mind is not really good at being a linguist)

Well, thats actually a pretty interesting thing. As far as I can see 
GNUstep may have some unique advantages in a Chinese/Japanese/xxx 
setting! I can very much believe into this being a "market" for 
GNUstep. Apple/NeXT seem to be very strong in this area and I guess it 
is because of the good abstractions in the text API.

regards,
  Helge
--
Reich wird man nicht durch das, was man verdient.
Reich wird man durch das,               was man nicht ausgibt.
-- Henry Ford