Re: Changes I've been thinking of...

[Riccardo Mottola]

Hey,

I think you have many good points there. However, GNUstep is a wide 
project and targets many different users.
Many things you want do not clash with other goals, they only divert 
manpower. But keep in consideration that in an opensource project people 
do whatever they deem interesting or useful, there isn't a central planning.


> 1. Maturity of GNUstep code for developers (functionality, docs, 
> stability)
> 2. GUI appearance
> 3. Portability
> 4. Applications
>
> Gregory, behind all things you've mentioned I see a goal that can be 
> expressed by the
> following phrase: "World (all stuff outside of GNUstep) acceptance of 
> GNUstep as alternative
> developer framework that will help creating of alternative desktop 
> environment."
This statement is true, though, do you agree? The problem is that it is 
reductive, but I think it is true. GNUstep is perhaps more.
> Do you really think that improving website, theme (argh!) lead us to 
> rise of user attention
> to GNUstep? I don't think so. I see a lot of people comparing GNUstep 
> with GNOME/KDE ("What's
I think so. We may argue about theming, but a good, informative and 
usable website is really useful!
> 3. Stop trying to work everywhere. Let's make it working good at one 
> place, then go to another. Let's
>    speak frankly - we can't compete with Qt. Despite the existing of 
> DO, Objective-C and other great things.
I disagree here. Being portable is a big asset and we can do that!
> 5. Finish gnustep-gui as it is. Problem areas are: text subsystem, 
> fonts, graphics to name a few.
Agreed...
> 6. Create working destop environment for developers at least. Some day 
> I realized that I'm working
>    inside mess of not interacting things. My plan is:
>    - Create Login application
working on that, check GAP
>    - Create Preferences
what's wrong with SystemPreferences? Recently also GWorkspace's indexing 
panel  got fixed.
>    - Create Workspace Manager (Workspace + WindowMaker), excellent 
> integration of GNUstep with it (focus,
>      app management, dock interaction).
That's fine, but I'd put it lower priority. I care that we need to work 
well with other windowmanagers too. The best I see medium term is to 
enable/disable duplicate components and create a gnsutep-based 
configuration tool
>    - Create Terminal application based on Alex Malmberg application.
it can be improved indeed. It works well, but I miss some features. ON 
the todo list.
>    - Create Mail application (GNUmail can be used as starting point).
This is a sensible point. GNUmail is unmaintained sadly. Also in some 
sense it is "too much" having features here and there, while it lacks 
certain things i'd like.
>    - Finish ProjectCenter (anyway it's my responsibility).
Oh I hope that! I want to be able to maintain most projects in GAP with 
PC. You knwo I am a long-time PC user. Before even you started 
maintaining it...
> 7. Make it clean, fast and simple as NS/OS. Personally I'm tired of 
> bloated desktop environments (KDE/GNOME).
>    I want improved (at reasonable degree) OPENSTEP.
Totally agreed! Even Mac is not clean anymore. I'd like something along 
mac 10.2/10.3 in terms of features, but with a more consistent, less 
shiny interface, more NeXTstep...
> It's not a plan targeting on world domination. It's plan to make 
> comfortable development environment as I see it.
> And if it will be comfortable to me it can be useful to somebody else.
Sure, it needs to be somethign useful and clean. I don't want to aim at 
GNOME or KDE; but something along the line of Xfce.
> Summarizing this long email: we should focus on achievable goals by 
> narrowing down portability and loosing
> competition with MacOS for now. Let's agree on strong, clean, simple 
> vision of project future and users will
> come.

Agreed. We need both users and developers.

But I can also tell you that most development in the past 2 years was 
good. GNUstep improved (much more than it broke). But a bit "too little" 
unfortunately in some areas and thus they are unfinished...

Riccardo