"toll-free bridging"

[strobe anarkhos]

Hello, I'm back on the list.

Can GNUStep use Apple's "Core Foundation"?

Core Foundation is part of Darwin (thus open source and free in the BSD meaning 
of free) and highly portable (in fact IIRC it has already been ported to 
several eunuchs platforms). What's neat about it is Apple has basically taken 
OpenStep Foundation and wrote a plain C interface for it without crippling it. 
What's nice about this is I can write a model class for an existing library and 
people can write a platform-specific view and controller class in C or C++ 
while I can use AppKit. I can do this because Core Foundation and Cocoa 
Foundation objects are interchangeable (what Apple calls "Toll-free bridging". 

Of course if I write a model class in C using Core Foundation I would also like 
such objects to be accessible by GNUStep. If I write my model in Objective-C it 
won't be as portable and I won't be a popular programmer in the dev group. 
However if I write it in Core Foundation I can access it in OS X's AppKit (Java 
or Objective-C) and other platforms can access it in C.

Being able to access Core Foundation using Java on other platforms would be 
huge too, although I do not personally use the language.