Re: Kickstarter was not successful... but it did help things...

[Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller]

Am 12.09.2013 um 12:03 schrieb David Chisnall:

> On 12 Sep 2013, at 10:08, Graham Lee <graham@iamleeg.com> wrote:
> 
>> On 12 Sep 2013, at 09:20, David Chisnall <theraven@sucs.org> wrote:
>> 
>>> I believe that 'compatibility with OS X 10.x' as a goal is fundamentally 
>>> flawed, for three reasons:
>> 
>> Hi David,
>> 
>> I'd like to add this reason:
>> 
>> 4. Not many high-profile Cocoa/Cocoa Touch devs actually _care_ about 
>> write-once-build-everywhere. They think that the Mac (or iPhone or iPad) is 
>> the best thing ever, and therefore aren't going to release Windows (or 
>> Android) versions of their apps even if it were zero cost, zero effort. That 
>> means that if GNUstep's target audience is Apple platform devs, it's really 
>> not going to get much of a profile.
>> 
>> Now I'm not saying that Apple platforms devs _are_ the target, you (and 
>> particularly Greg as Chief Maintainer) may have other goals in mind. But if 
>> they are, then I'd suggest that there are ways to improve the project's 
>> standing amongst them that aren't providing API compatibility with Mac OS X. 
>> The reason I've been (slowly) working on some GNUstep Web projects, for 
>> example, is to be able to say "you can do your server backend code using the 
>> skills you've already acquired while writing your apps". That position would 
>> make GNUstep a complement to, rather than a replacement for, Mac OS X or 
>> iOS—it puts it in the same category as something like objective-cloud.com. 
>> We're still low visibility there, but if you search for "objective-c server" 
>> then you (or at least I) get a bunch of my blog posts and Nicola's FOSDEM 
>> talk which we could promote more :-). That talk's here: 
>> http://www.slideshare.net/guest9efd1a1/building-server-applications-using-objectivec-and-gnustep
>>  and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhnZMpGiL6s
>> 
>> As ever if I've completely missed the point then please correct me.
> 
> I think we have several categories of potential GNUstep-users:
> 
> - People who like the idea of Free Software, but use a Mac because it's 
> easier for them.  They want to write code on OS X, but they'd quite like it 
> to work on other platforms too.
> 
> - Commercial developers, who have an Apple-only app, but would like it to run 
> on Windows / Android if it were a low-cost port, but don't want to invest 
> much effort in it.  Some may want to just ensure that it works, even if they 
> have no intention of releasing it, so if Apple releases a clone of their 
> flagship product as part of their standard install they have a fallback 
> position.
> 
> - Apple / NeXT refugees, who liked the platform once but don't like where 
> it's gone and want to build something that starts from the same roots but 
> goes in a different direction
> 
> - Developers who have had little or no experience with Apple or NeXT, but 
> like the structure of OpenStep and Objective-C
> 
> - Developers who are using Apple on the client and want to use the same 
> skills on the server
> 
> - Developers who are writing for *NIX using some other framework and want 
> something better

yes, very good analysis!

> 
> It's important to consider all of these.

Why? It could be better to focus on one of them instead of having *all of them* 
dissatisfied, because we don't have such many developers and sometimes these 
groups may even have disparate requirements.

Nikolaus

> 
> -- Sent from my PDP-11

-- received on my screen :)