Re: really attracting developers

[Andreas Wagner]

Hello Rogelio, hello list,

* Rogelio Serrano wrote on Aug/25/2006:
> Whats keeping other developers from gnustep?
>
> incomplete ide? 
> incomplete nextstep based system? 
> incomplete libraries?
>
> i don't buy the general applications unavailability argument. we are 
> talking about people who want to create apps under gnustep.
>
> i don't buy the appearance argument either.

Just a FYI, it's up to you/everyone what to make of it (of course it 
is... anyway):
ATM, there is a small community project forming around developers 
dissatisfied with Apple's dilution of OpenStep and Unix principles. 
AFAIU, the main goal is to work towards getting an OS/development 
environment quite like Apple's -- just without the Mac stuff. If 
anything, divergence would be accepted towards the old NextStep model.

The project is merely in the process of forming and many things are not 
decided yet. E.g. I don't fully understand the goals that are to be 
pursued and where or why they seem to differ from GNUstep. Then again, I 
am not a developer at all, so maybe that's no wonder. Another thing that 
has been discussed is working towards an Ubuntu-based distribution with 
a full-blown (or maximum-blown) OpenStep environment set up -- the 
problem there seemed to be that there is no agreed-upon starting point 
(which leads back to the previous item).

Anyway, I am quite certain that there are rather competent and commited 
developers there. You can maybe get an impression of your own by 
browsing to the websites I reference below. I think Chris (cbv) has seen 
one discussion thread at an Ubuntu forum, where they tried to gather 
more volunteers (and ended up with people who wondered whether to outfit 
GWorkspace with qt/gtk toolset), but he (as well as I) has not been 
successful in getting them to explain what other/more than Linux/GNUstep 
they have in mind either. I imagine (or hope) a more fruitful discussion 
would be possible with core developers. Only my own, more or less subtle 
hints didn't seem to lead them to #gnustep or to watch this maillist 
yet. Of course I will keep on pushing them as much as I can without 
getting on everyone's nerves too much, but maybe someone of you would 
find an interest in showing up there. Even as a non-developer I can at 
least tell it would be cool if both projects would get some boost. I am 
going to drop a reference to this maillist thread over there, too.


I just realize the above might sound a bit funny -- "they" are a group 
of volunteers around a couple of developers who have a long history of 
coding, teaching and counselling. I came to know them in the late 
nineties for their XPT -- a suite of small, independent tools for 
windows developers. Happy to get away from Windows, they switched to OS 
X (and I to linux) when it was launched to find themselves now 
frustrated with Apple/OS X showing utmost disrespect for their Unix and 
NextStep heritage. The main figure would be Rick Downes. But I am just 
inviting you to browse the sites mentioned below.



Then, more directly to the matter at hand -- what's keeping other 
developers away from GNUstep? (Keep in mind that I am hardly a 
developer, but here's what I imagine to be more or less important 
points. I take it that you are collecting ideas, not (yet) deciding 
about which are critical and which aren't.)

- Uncertainty about cross-platform portability of their apps. (Well, 
  linux apps are probably not more portable anyway, but I think the 
  issue here is attracting apple developers.) I don't know how much 
  could be done there by means of run-time (compat.) libraries and such. 
  (This has been mentioned as "cocoa incompleteness" issue, but might be 
  more general. Also, it's not about "complete enough to write nice 
  apps", but about "inherently cross-platform compilable" IMHO.)

- In the same vein, how much are the apps dependent upon (how much of a) 
  GNUstep/OpenStep system when they are executed. Can one develop on 
  OpenStep and deploy without it? Can this be handled -- if it needs to 
  be -- with a runtime environment?

- Missing popularity in general, which maybe translates to:
  - no distribution with its package management system backing GNUstep 
    (has been mentioned as "install/setup" issue)
  - the outfit that is comparable to what everyone's more used to (than 
    to NextStep's) is not prominent enough (has been mentioned as "look 
    and feel" issue)

- Fears of RMS-ization. I have no strong feelings there, but I know that 
  many regard RMS to be over-politicizing things and whatnot. And it's 
  not clear what role he and the FSF are playing for the project. How 
  close is the affiliation? what rights is one transferring, are the FSF 
  exclusive owners of those rights or does the developer retain some? 
  OTOH, it would be worthwile to know if there has been a case where the 
  FSF successfully fought for some of GNUstep's rights.


Finally, coming to know GNUstep, I myself am tempted to learn 
programming. Up to now, I am more the whitepaper reader, but I admit 
that I am impressed with the possibilities of the development 
environment, and the attempt to integrate technologies like cairo. 
Unfortunately, what is keeping me from learning it is simply that I 
don't have enough time (I should be writing my philosophy thesis), but I 
have K&R under the pillow now for a start. If anyone could provide me 
with literature tips more focused on real-world application or 
X/Cairo/Glitz/WindowManager development than K&R or K&Pike -- probably 
best by personal mail -- I would be very thankful. Or should I dive 
right into the source code of some wm or gustep-backend? Other than 
that, I have plenty of GNUstep tutorial urls to read through, I don't 
think missing documentation belongs to the list above.



Here the promised links then:

http://rixstep.com/index.shtml - current home with development going on 
in cocoa.

http://rixstep.com/2/0/index.shtml - "The NeXTonian", ressources about 
NeXTStep, the personnel and its history.

http://rixstep.com/2/0/nextbuntu.shtml - new page set up for the 
NeXTbuntu project. Not much there yet except for a contact (email) 
button. www.nextbuntu.org redirects here.

http://www.dotatdot.co.uk/clix/index.php - discussion forum (there are 
Ubuntu, Openstep on linux, developer, and 'other people's platforms' 
fora available when you register.)

http://radsoft.net/ - that's the site of the windows tools suite. still 
a lot of reading ressources on it.

I suppose the best way to get in touch would be by email from 
www.nextbuntu.org or on the forum.

I hope this whole mail doesn't sound too much like advertisement. I just 
would love both projects find together and get ahead as good as 
possible.



Thanks for taking the time to read this long mail.
Andreas

--
Beware of low-flying butterflies.

--
My Public PGP Keys:
1024 Bit DH/DSS: 0x869F81BA
768 Bit RSA:     0x1AD97BA5