Re: really attracting developers

[Markus Hitter]

Am 25.08.2006 um 16:25 schrieb Andreas Wagner:

> ATM, there is a small community project forming around developers  
> dissatisfied with Apple's dilution of OpenStep and Unix principles.

Well, if they are dissatisfied with Apple's principles, why they are  
planning to clone Mac OS X, then? Changes between OpenStep and Mac OS  
X are in big parts the stuff they dislike: Carbon, to name the  
biggest entity.

> The project is merely in the process of forming and many things are  
> not decided yet.

A good idea would be to get rid of the fixation to Ubuntu. Sure,  
Ubuntu is a great thing, but it is a full OS with more than one full  
GUI and developer environments already. To stay within the heritage  
of OpenStep, they'd have to get rid of all this (then) unneccessary  
stuff.

> E.g. I don't fully understand the goals that are to be pursued and  
> where or why they seem to differ from GNUstep.

Rick obviously wants GNUstep and even more. If he wants to get  
anywhere this century (and I mean the 21st one), he could start with  
a Mac OS X compatibility layer for GNUstep. Whatever the contents of  
this layer would be.

BTW., with the renaming issue he's plain wrong. GNUstep has a lot of  
"GS" named classes, but they are additions over OpenStep (and Cocoa).  
The "NS" named classes are all (regarding OpenStep) there, are  
expected to be used primarily and are expected to work the way they  
worked on OpenStep.

> Another thing that has been discussed is working towards an Ubuntu- 
> based distribution with a full-blown (or maximum-blown) OpenStep  
> environment set up

Like Gürkan Sengün already did with the GNUstep Live CD? This CD  
works great and if you happen to own a computer with 128 MB RAM,  
you'll notice the advantage of GNUstep Live over Ubuntu with Gnome  
almost immediately: it works without minutes of swapping delays.


> Anyway, I am quite certain that there are rather competent and  
> commited developers there.

It's a pity they didn't show up here on GNUstep already. I'm sure  
they'd be welcome to start projects dependant on GNUstep and nobody  
would stop them if they'd decide to get independant one day.


> [...] the issue here is attracting apple developers.

Without cloning the entire Mac OS X, you'll never be able to compile  
Cocoa apps unchanged right on any other system. With some care taken  
however, it works today already. You can compile GNUstep apps with  
different levels of nativeness, use Apple's Interface Builder, and so  
on ... GNUmail is a good example: Native on the Mac, native elsewhere.

> - In the same vein, how much are the apps dependent upon (how much  
> of a)   GNUstep/OpenStep system when they are executed.

Full to not at all, dependent on how statically you link and what  
*Step specials you use (e.g. Pasteboard, Distributed Objects).

> - no distribution with its package management system backing GNUstep

Many package managers have hooked in GNUstep already and it's not  
particularly difficult to put it into even more. GNUstep is more or  
less a "./configure; make; make install" thing. Many times due to  
many dependencies. Once you've set up the dependencies and know the  
parameters for your platform, it works until you step over your beard.

> - the outfit that is comparable to what everyone's more used to

That's true, IMHO, and we're discussing it right now.

> - Fears of RMS-ization.

Even Apple and Ubuntu it's self can live with this. They all use  
bash, gcc, and this other stuff.

> Finally, coming to know GNUstep, I myself am tempted to learn  
> programming.

<http://www.gnustep.org/experience/documentation.html>
<http://www.gnustep.it/nicola/Tutorials/index.html>
<http://home.gna.org/pmanager/videos.html>

The last of these even comes with a nice video, showing and  
commenting you each click needed.


Markus

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Dipl. Ing. Markus Hitter
http://www.jump-ing.de/