Re: GNUstep and the desktop

[Nicolas Roard]

On 2004-02-04 16:04:22 +0000 Alexander Malmberg 
<alexander@malmberg.org> wrote:

Hi,

(...)
> My proposed solution to this conflict is to explicitly turn -gui into 
> a
> desktop environment _interface_, and to move the implementation to
> "desktop bundles". Desktop bundles would live outside -gui, but would
> work with -gui to provide an implementation of the "desktop 
> environment"
> part of the -gui interface. Applications would be written against this
> interface, and would thus work well on any implementation.
>
> I plan on working on one "desktop bundle" implementation for Backbone,
> and I hope that others will work on other implementations, ones that
> integrate with other desktop existing environments (eg. for GNOME, for
> KDE, for Windows, ...), or that work with a new desktop environment 
> (eg.
> for Chad's DirectFB desktop, ...).
(...)

Well, that sounds good, indeed :-)

It will solve one of GNUstep's PR problem (eg GNUstep is or is not a 
desktop ? ^_^)
Plus, it goes very well with the GNUstep's goal of portability ... 
while not forbidding
a GNUstep's desktop. A perfect split imho :)

In the future, it would be great to have GNUstep/KDE, GNUstep/GNOME, 
GNUstep/Windows
... and GNUstep/Backbone :) bundles, and just let your app integrate 
seemleasly in the
desktop. I guess some kind of Theme appearance will be envisageable at 
some point,
to better integrate.

So people focusing on portability will have clearer goals, while 
others interested in a
true GNUstep desktop could works on without mixing with the 
portability goals.

Very nice !

--
Nicolas Roard