Re: GNUstep on the rise!

[Nicolas Roard]

On 8/4/05, Sašo Kiselkov <diablos@manga.sk> wrote:
> Quoting Chris Vetter <cbv@gmx.net>:
> 
> > A few days ago I read an article mentioning, among other things, GNUstep and
> > how 'cool' (my choice of words) it would be if/when/whether 'these guys'
> > (ie. the developers of GNUstep) would decide to put GNUstep on top of their
> > OWN operating system instead of 'screwing around with existing systems
> > resulting in symlinks all over the place' (again, my choice of words) and
> > 'imagine GNUstep on a Mach based kernel.'
> >
> 
> This would, IMHO, be the biggest mistake possible: tying GNUstep to a 
> particular
> platform. I personally love that fact that I only have to write an app once 
> and
> then have it running with little porting effort on Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X,
> and even ugly, but spread M$ Windows.
> 
> Of course, I'm not against a GNUstep-only-system (hell, I already did it as my
> graduation work at high school, complete with a CD-based installer, integrated
> workspace, it's own package management, etc.), but care should be taken not to
> make it part of the core libraries.

Well, GNUstep itself should stay as it is, cross-platform, indeed.
Having a good windows port would be rather useful, and should attract
OSX devs. But on the "linux" (or bsd) side, I don't see how GNUstep
(more exactly, a GNUstep-based desktop) could prevail against
KDE/GNOME -- considering their respective "market share" and, the fact
they are rather good now, it would be really difficult for a 3rd
desktop to really emerge.

For me the only real option would indeed to have a "GNUstep" OS
containing only GNUstep apps, to really have a consistent and powerful
environment that people can easily try and adopt. Plus, in some way it
would be easier than a desktop: with a desktop you need to be rather
tolerant to your host OS, while with an OS you can control everything
and thus propose original solutions (eg you can decide to use launchd,
rendezvous, etc.). If people want to adapt the "desktop" part on their
own os, they still can anyway.

You can see how different it "feels" when you have a complete GNUstep
env by trying the GNUstep livecd (http://livecd.gnustep.org) ... and
yet, the live cd is "just" based on debian.

Anyway, the live cd route is a good one, as it let people easily try
new environments/projects.

-- 
Nicolas Roard
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
  -Arthur C. Clarke