Re: Discuss-gnustep Digest, Vol 36, Issue 37

[Michael Thaler]

On Saturday 26 November 2005 12:57, discuss-gnustep-request@gnu.org wrote:

> My idea of a good desktop follows along the nextstep design and thats
> it. Did Steve Jobs intend nextstep to be a good citizen of other
> desktops? I dont think so. I dont know about openstep but it seems
> that its not a good citizen of other desktops too. Maybe thats why
> next was never able to make a sustainable business on it.

The problem with this is, that gnustep is not useable as a desktop at all 
right now. For instance, there is no browser, so you have to use Firefox or 
Konqueror or any other browser of your choice and gnustep apps and KDE/GNOME 
apps just don't work very well together because of issues like horizontal 
menu bar vs. vertical menubar. Furthermore, under KDE gnustep is basically 
not usable at all. The gnustep menu doesn't work correctly. I don't know if 
this is a kwin bug or a gnustep bug.

And nextstep/openstep is dead for a long time. Without Steve Jobs noone would 
care for nextstp/openstep at all anymore. Steve Jobs did the right thing. He 
turned nextstep into something the average Joe user can and wants to use. 
Steve Jobs allways managed to make things that excite people. But gnustep is 
not exciting for the average Joe user. It is an excellent development 
framework based on an excellent language, but there are absolutely no 
applications which make it worth using gnustep, it looks ugly compared to 
MacOSX, KDE or GNOME (this is of course personal preference but I am quite 
sure if you ask 100 average computer users which look they like most, gnustep 
will be the loser by a wide margin), it interoperates badly with every other 
free desktop environement (which is bad because there are essential apps like 
a browser missing in gnustep) and it is hard to install.

I wish there would be someone like Steve Jobs who could make gnustep more 
popular. It is such a nice framework based on a really nice language. But 
without a bigger community, gnustep will never gain enough momentum. And 
without some radical changes in look and feel and interoperability this will 
not happen.

Greetings,
Michael