Von: Lars Sonchocky-Helldorf <lars.sonchocky-helldorf@hamburg.de>
Datum: 13. September 2006 02:25:32 MESZ
An: Yavor Doganov <yavor@doganov.org>
Betreff: Re: Advertisement for gnustep
Am 13.09.2006 um 00:19 schrieb Yavor Doganov:
Lars Sonchocky-Helldorf wrote:
This is ideological thinking.
Free software is extremely ideological, political and social by
nature. The ultimate goal of the GNU Project is to change the
society.
I don't want to live in a "changed society" where some ideologist
tells me what to think and to do. Been there, done that. It was
overall not good. You can't force freedom onto someone (that would
be oxymoronic) freedom has to be based on voluntariness, also known
as free will.
But if you want to achieve an objective in practice you'll have
to think practically and do practically things, like give
something to get something (which is also an very good social
behaviour).
We are pragmatic idealists, I'm sure you know that ;-)
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pragmatic.html
And it's the best if the "something" is actually something
somebody needs and gets a benefit from. That "something" most
Cocoa developers - e.g. the people that actually *use* some kind
of OpenStep today - need would be some possibility to port their
software to Windows. If we could offer that seamlessly we would
gain a huge interest in that community without the need to
convince people to use OpenStep in the first hand.
What will the benefit for the citizens of the Free World for that
(apart from the patches that these Cocoa developers will
eventually submit)? If the main goal of the GNUstep project is to
help some proprietary software developers to port their apps to
yet another proprietary platform, I consider the project doomed.
That's a rhetorical question, though, since I know that's not the
goal of the GNUstep project.
Like my grandpa (rip) said: "If you can't go through the front door
try the servants' entrance". There is a lot of truth and experience
of life in this. You can't always make the rules of life. That
would be ridiculous.
Or to cut a long story short: If you want to make people to use
your stuff you must offer them a purpose to do so (for instance I
don't use a flat iron since I have mostly tees and sweaters).
I don't think that popularity should be chased at all cost and
definitely not at the expense of providing more power to some
developers to enhance non-free software. That's a bad thing.
There are prominent exampels of other free software projects that
put popularity as a higher priority than freedom and GNUstep
should definitely avoid this.
Cocoa developers have a huge need for a porting solution to windows
This is their problem and entirely unrelated to the goals of the
GNU Project. My need as a free software user is getting GNUstep
to run fine on a GNU system, so I can migrate from GNOME to
GNUstep at work (that means that it has to be suitable for basic
business activity and more). And so that other users can setup
their systems and stop tormenting me that GNUstep is a PITA.
And as a surplus we also would get some more apps for GNUstep
(even if some of those would be commercial ones).
Free commercial apps are welcome, but not proprietary ones. It
will be a contribution equal to zero (even a negative number) if
someone ports a non-free app for GNUstep.
reality distorsion field? I thought, only Mac users have that ;-)
,----
| Please contribute as user and developer to GNUstep[link], a free
| object-oriented framework for application development, and
help it
| achieve the status of a complete and featured desktop
environment.
`----
Just good will and appealing to it alone is not enough. Thats
maybe makes you feel better but you won't reach a single target
that way.
Well, it will draw attention, at least.
Actually, your proposal makes me yawn. It reads like "just another
obscure OO framework is looking for some mind share" in a tone that
is somewhat similar to the statements some eastern block government
made in the old days)*. Why should I care (given I would not know
GNUstep and it's benefits), there are tons of such frameworks
(mostly worse of course ;-)) out there? Where do you mention the
advantages of GNUstep (don't say that doesn't count here. Otherwise
I advise you to stay with GNOME, KDE whatever. Those are at least
well known). If you really want to get attention you need to
mention at least some benefits people get from using it to make
them use it. Thats like advertising works, chap!
)* No I am not a fan of the capitalist society as we currently have
it all over the world. But I deny that what we had in eastern
Germany, other east european countries and the soviet union was a
better society. It was a perversion of some liberation movements'
ideas.
A lot of people will examine the website and some of them might
find the project interesting. Others might discover that GNUstep
is a liberation effort and may decide to join, just like the GNU
Classpath has attracted developers (that are freedom fighters).
And I really hope that it will attract users, they're desperately
needed.
regards, Lars