Re: Comments on the website from people on twitter...

[Riccardo Mottola]

Hi,

James Carthew wrote:
> I think the biggest problem with gnustep is there's a lot of little 
> programs like talksoup, mpdcon and gsmplayer that are basically 
> abandoned or won't compile properly. It would be nice if these could 
> be gathered up and tested with gnustep to ensure they compile. I've 
> been trying to follow the instructions to compile these applications 
> on a Debian SID system and they just won't compile. This is when I've 
> been checking out the code directly from Savanah or the release 
> tarballs from gnustep.org <http://gnustep.org>'s website. I'd like to 
> get these little applications compilling, apply the theme engine, and 
> the mac menus, and make some screenshots of a GNUStep desktop in 
> action with as many mods to make it removed from the classic look as 
> possible. This might help to generate some interest.
I agree with you. It is not the only problem, but it is a big issue.

As you may have noticed, I started a rework of the GS website by 
splitting it more into "user" and "developer", although the changes are 
still mostly of reorganization and a graphic change, I scoured the 
information we have on the site and on the wiki
I pulled in more information from the wiki to the website, where the old 
pages were still there, just outdated.

Some of it is "old" but not terribly outdated. Many applications are 
abandoned though, they won't compile, their information status on the 
wiki is outdated, incomplete and gives a bad impression.

For a certain kind of user, those applications are our business card 
exactly as their website they are in. And it is a bad card indeed. Just 
polishing up our website is not going to improve the perception for this 
kind of user.
We have of course many kind of users who try out gnustep in different 
ways and for different purposes. But you made a very valid point for 
which I fight a lot, but with little results.

1) people will try out apps e.g. in Debian. I will not write in public 
the bad words I should for this open-source linux distribution, they 
would be inappropriate: also it is the linux distribution I use and like 
most (except for this....).
Somebody yesterday reported he is using ProjectCenter 0.6.0, while 0.6.1 
has been out for 13months!!! And GWorkspace is so outated I don't even 
know how they can build it and in any case it has many solved bugs.

2) the person who is not already scared away will search the web for 
information. It will land on a page like freshmeat or on our wiki, 
depending on the search engine used. Then two things will happen
2.a) The application is maintained, in that case it will not compile 
against the debian source packages which are mercilessly old.
2.b) The application is bit-rotting, doesn't compile at all, there are 
no new versions. The user will get the impression that GNUstep is dead 
even if only that "app" is dead.

after 2.a) the user might:
3) get finally everything from source, read what is available and 
updated on our Wiki, software index, Gap and Etoile. Then he will learn 
that things aren't that bad, but only very stubborn and motivated users 
will get here
4) run away and make some biased and false statement on twitter :)

Thus I am firmly convinced that keeping our apps running and keeping 
their information up-to-date is important. As is important that 
developers who work on these apps, tools, utilities write in the public 
about updates with mails, blogs, tweets, facebook and other means.

It's not only the website. It's not only the app. It is also their 
packages in distributions, the "social activity" about them, etc etc.

We had many of these points discussed already. GAP helps here a bit, but 
it is of course by long not enough.

Riccardo
(GNUstep developer, GWorkspace and GAP maintainer)