Re: really attracting developers

[Doc O'Leary]

In article <mailman.5596.1156500354.9609.discuss-gnustep@gnu.org>,
 "Rogelio Serrano" <rogelio.serrano@gmail.com> wrote:

> Whats keeping other developers from gnustep?

Depends on who those "other developers" are.  I can only speak as 
someone who 10 years ago used GNUstep (such as it was) on Linux, but was 
drawn by commercial interests to focus on NeXT/Apple development.  For 
me, it's a question of what would get me *back* into GNUstep 
development.  I'm the essentially the low bar; if you can't convince me 
then you're in trouble.

> incomplete ide?

More useful to discuss is how to take an OpenStep project developed on 
Mac OS X and get it working on a GNUstep system.  I don't at all poo-poo 
the work on ProjectCenter, but if you really address where new 
development is coming from you'll probably find that a lot of people are 
cutting their ObjC teeth on Xcode.  More useful to me would be having 
Xcode cross-compile and/or link to produce a binary that runs on a 
GNUstep system.

> incomplete nextstep based system?
> incomplete libraries?

Not in any major way that a developer couldn't solve.  What matters more 
is the lack of a market, because I'm not going to expend 10x the effort 
to develop for a user base that is 100x smaller than even the Mac's.  
What interests me still about GNUstep is the possibility of taking my 
Mac apps to a place where Apple won't go, say like the Nokia 770.  Given 
the dramatic price drop that has occurred since NeXT took over Apple 
(yay, no more $5000 developer tools!), I think GNUstep is currently best 
served by shifting focus slightly to be a deployment platform more than 
a development platform.

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