Re: OpenOffice OS-X Port and GNUstep

[Adrian Robert]

> The problem here is the enormous task of rewriting every part of OOo
> that uses X11 to something (anything) else (and to never break linux,
> sun, windows or whatever as a bonus).

So OOO on Windows uses X11 as well?  GTK?  If so, obviously
that's a decision that won't be changed easily: a pure X-specific
GUI architecture.  If they are using the W32 API on the other
hand, then they've already got a cross-platform GUI
infrastructure in place, though it's hard to ask someone to start
fresh doing even the last layer on a new windowing system.

For Emacs 20, a similarly cross-platform app with a _much_
simpler GUI, the X11 and W32 layers run to 25,000 lines of code
each, but OS X/GNUstep to just 10,000.  (All built on 120K lines
of common base code.)  So the Cocoa API means less work than for
the other platforms, but it would still be a heck of a lot of
work for OOO, which is probably an order of magnitude larger.

Despite the relative unpleasancy of using X11 graphics on OS X,
I think the effort would be better spent on things like improving
MS document compatibility than doing a new windowing layer.