Re: Re[3]: Gnustep + mac + windows?)

[Richard Frith-Macdonald]

On Thursday, September 26, 2002, at 07:57 AM, Saibot wrote:

> From: "Manuel Guesdon" <ml@orange-concept.com>
> > On Wed, 25 Sep 2002 12:14:22 +0200 Andreas Heppel <aheppel@web.de> 
> > wrote:
>
> > Another thought is that GNUstep like lots of 'free' projects is based 
> > on
> people interests. If someone want a feature,
> > it code it. If he's the only one who want it and don't want to make it,
> the feature never come. I think GNustep is like
> > this: people have different interests and desire and make things to 
> > follow
> that. Windows people and Mac OS X
> > ones may choose to be interested and participate to GNUstep development
> but why one should do it for them ?
>
> Because not everyone who desires a feature has the ability or time to 
> do it.
> I've seen quite a lot of people on this list ask about windows or mac 
> os x
> compatibility. GNustep, like most open source software, is made to be 
> used.
> Users of something don't have to be developers of that thing too. If you
> were developing a multimedia application and a user asks about a loop
> fonctionality, would you complain "why should I do it for him"? You'd 
> either
> code it or not or someone else would, or not. If you got 100s of 
> requests
> for that feature, you might consider implementing it although you 
> wouldn't
> use it yourself...

Yep ... I agree with both points of view ... sometimes I implement 
stuff I
have no intention of using (though most often when I think there is a 
chance
I might want to use it in future) ... like a lot of the work porting the
base library to windoze.  On the other hand, it's frustrating to see 
people
asking for features but not contributing, or worse, asking for features, 
which
I implement, and then nobody (or hardly anybody) uses.  Despite the 
frustration,
we have to keep trying ... it's one way progress happens.

> You don't have to try and make people switch to unix or GNustep. Andreas
> said "Windows developers could be interested in GNustep, if they joined 
> it
> would help". Nobody's saying you have to try and convert them. Just 
> that if
> GNustep had a windows GUI, more people would join, which would be good 
> for
> GNustep.

I think this is true ... but Fred has done the major work of 
implementing the
windows gui to the point where less experienced people ought to be able 
to
take development forward, now is probably the time for people who want to
develop on windows to have the vision to work on it.  It's unreasonable 
to
expect core GNUstep developers who work entirely on GNU/linuxto put a 
lot of
their time into windows development (though I think we've all offered to 
help
and advise).