Re: In regards to defining GNUstep and Window Maker

[Alex Perez]

On Mon, 13 Sep 2004 address@hidden wrote:

> 
> Greetings,
> 
> It has come to our attention that GNUstep developers and users may be 
> somewhat confused as to the relationship of Window Maker and GNUstep. 
> This confusion seems to have resulted in the GNUstep project posting a 
> webpage that casts the Window Maker project in a negative light.

I suppose that's subject to interpretation. The wording is not the nicest 
in the world, and I don't think anyone is opposed to changing it to be 
less confrontational, since that is not our objective.

> http://wiki.gnustep.org/index.php/GNUstepIsNotWM
> 
> While the statement "official GNUstep window manager" is not accurate, it 
> was at one point in time.  Over the last several years, the GNUstep 
Yes, but it is not anymore and has not been the case for years. Yet the WM 
still says this is the case. We don't want excuses, we just want it 
changed. It's not an attack on WindowMaker. I use WindowMaker (wm2, 
actually) and frankly most GNUstep users do too.

> project has indicated that it doesn't want to be tied to a window manager, 
That's correct, there's nothing about GNUstep that fundamentally ties it 
to any window manager.
> and communication and cooperation between the two projects has faltered 
> since.  We are guilty of not keeping our website up-to-date on this change 
> of events.  However, our intention has never been to cause confusion or 
> purposely promote misinformation, and we would like to promptly correct 
> the situation.
All our intention is is to clear up misinformation. There have been 
several high-profile cases where people have made uninformed statements 
about "GNUstep" being used when in fact all it was was WindowMaker. This 
is bad for both of us, and it's in our mutual best interest to clear up 
the confusion.

> We would like to propose a mutal exchange of text that can be used to 
> define what our projects are, and what, if any, relationship they have to 
> one another.  We will update our website to reflect the fact that Window 
> Maker includes support for GNUstep applications, but that it is only one 
> of several window managers that do so.  It will be made clear that Window 
> Maker is not supported or endorsed by the GNUstep project in any way.  In 
> addition, we'll put up any text you want to give us that describes the 
> GNUstep project.
Well, I wouldn't say we don't endorse it, at least to a limited extent, 
since all the screenshots at GNUstep.org include it, as well as the fact 
that many (most?) GNUstep users do in fact use WindowMaker (and recommend 
it to others)

> In exchange, we request that the page given above be modified with the 
> following text describing the Window Maker project:
> 
> "Window Maker is an X11 window manager that mimics the elegant look and 
> feel of the NEXTSTEP[tm] user interface.  It is "aware" of applications 
> written for the GNUstep Desktop Environment, allowing for a more seamless 
> integration with the desktop.  Window Maker is not a standalone desktop 
> environment or coding framework, and is not endorsed or supported by the 
> GNUstep project in any way."
We would like to try to avoid using subjective terminology such as 
"elegant" in a description of WindowMaker, since plenty of people think 
it's extremely ugly (Im not one of them but I understand what thir 
complaints are.)

> As for the Window Maker logo, it is a deviation of the GNUstep logo (a 
> version from the logo contest that the GNUstep project rejected), and 
> we obtained permission to use it from the GNUstep project and artist a 
> long time ago.  This was back when the GNUstep project favored Window 
> Maker, and our project was the only window manager that included GNUstep 
> support.  If the GNUstep project would like us to change our logo to 
> avoid confusion, we will be happy to so, given a reasonable amount of 
> time.  I suspect it would take us several months before we could come up 
> with a new logo of our own.
I think it would definately be good to have the WindowMaker project use a 
different logo. The GNUstep logo is displayed rather prominently in the 
about box which you get when you click the dock. The differences you 
describe are trivial and I'd wager that 99% of all people out there are 
not going to even notice the difference.

> For the record, we would like to point out that our project and website 
> has done nothing but help to promote the GNUstep project over the years. 
> There was a time when Window Maker was the only window manager that 
> included GNUstep support, and the GNUstep project used to/still does share 
> some Window Maker libraries (such as libwraster/wrlib).  We would have 
> hoped this good will would have resulted in the GNUstep project privately 
> contacting us to discuss any issues, prior to painting our project as the 
> "bad guys".
While you may see it this way, I, *personally* do not. I say this as 
someone who did not start using GNUstep and WindowMaker until several 
years ago. (three, I guess, now). I understand clearly that there was a 
time when this was the case, but it is no longer and the future is now. I 
don't think we've painted anyone at the "bad guys" and frankly that's not 
the objective. You are reading far too much into our rather simple and 
innocent request. We wish only that GNUstep be identified correctly 
instead of confused because of the identical use of logos and other such 
things. 

Alex Perez
GNUstep.org webmaster team.