Re: GNUstep roadmap (was Re: [Suggestion] GNUstep-test for quality control)

[Nicolas Roard]

On 2003-10-22 21:26:10 +0000 Lars Sonchocky-Helldorf 
<Lars.Sonchocky-Helldorf@bbdo-interone.de> wrote:

> On 22.10.2003 22:58:35 "Philippe C.D. Robert" wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> On Wednesday, October 22, 2003, at 11:57  Uhr, Philip Mötteli wrote:
>>> You're right. But it's still far less important than the
>>> cross-platform feature of Gnustep or especially GDL2 and GSWeb. Those
>>> three are things, the other don't have at all. And
>> 
>> Many cross-platform APIs do already exist, many of them are even far
>> more usable than GNUstep as of today, so this feature really does not
>> (and IMHO will never) make GNUstep be unique. But then I could see a
>> chance for some Mac OS X developers to release their products to a
>> wider audience, but unfortunately there is much more than Cocoa on Mac
>> OS X, so again I doubt that GNUstep alone can be this solution.
> 
> This should be turned into a "win-win situation" as a manager would say:
> 
> Cocoa developers getting a cross platform possiblity (If you where on 
> mailto:cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com , you would already know how badly many 
> developers try to convince Apple to release Yellow Box (i.e. Cocoa) for 
> _Windows_)
> 
> GNUstep would finally get applications and could attract end users this way.
> 
> GNUstep could make Cocoa developers interested by releasing a somewhat 
> featurecomplete and stable GDL2 (another thing so many developers want to 
> have back from Apple: EOF)
> 
> If GNUstep manages it to get some more mindshare in the heads of Cocoa 
> developers (beside from "GNUstep, uhh that unstable attempt to implement 
> OpenStep, is this still alive?), I think the one or another developer would 
> be willing to help (hi, Chris Hanson ;-))

In fact, I think there isn't just one way to improve the momentum for GNUstep,
but at least three : 
- 1) one way is a functional GNUstep desktop on *nix
- 2) another way is to improve the cross-platform possibilities
- 3) a third way is to put the emphasis on fabulous frameworks like GDL2 and 
GSWEB

And many gnustep devs aren't automatically interested by all thoses 
possibilites. 
Trying to convince all the devs to go only on one of thoses ways is irrealist, 
in the free
software world everybody program for the fun. Some are only interested by 
proposition
#1, others by #2 or #3, etc. As each way is quite different from the others, I 
find it
very unlikely that you could brings every devs involved in gnustep community to 
thrown what they like and work only on one of theses options. It's just the way 
free
software work...

That said, I believe thoses 3 possibilities could really help GNUstep, but also 
that they 
aren't really separate -- having cross-platform capacities for example is good, 
but it's 
far better if it means you could well integrate your application on the OS. So 
a GNUstep 
desktop could be a very good thing for X-platform. Of course, minimum 
cooperation with
 others X11 apps (or for that matters Windows apps) is required too. The 
dependance
between GDL2+GSWEB and GNUstep desktop or X-platform is less important, but 
anyway,
any good PR thing for one will help the others and attract developers.

So the problem is that, each ones of theses options are interesting, and at the 
same time
related. But there isn't enough devs. I don't think an obvious solution exists 
then, as you
won't force programmers to work on one of theses particular topic if they don't 
want. Thoses
3 (at least) approachs are then doomed to continue to coexist...

But, if you look more at it, my opinion is that #1 or #3 aren't really the goal 
of GNUstep,
but more of external projects (gsweb and gdl2 are more or less additions to the 
gnustep
project, plus they could perhaps target more OSX to attract developers... and 
for #1 some 
efforts exists to bring a desktop based on gnustep libs).

So... imho GNUstep should just focus on improving the current libs, no more, no 
less (plus obviously
working on cross-platform if possible). And in fact, that's just what's more or 
less stated on the 
gnustep website... the others goals (GDL2+GSWEB or desktop) should be more 
focused
explicitly by others projects. OSX has a big reservoir of OpenStep programmers, 
so perhaps
a cleaner separation of concerns will help to attract them ?

And anyway, on the positive side, thanks to the progresses made on the gnustep 
libs and the 
buzz made by Apple, more and more people are coming on GNUstep -- that's a good 
thing
and we're starting to experience it (more new apps, etc.). So all in all, we 
should be more
optimist than ever for a GNUstep's World Domination ;-) 

-- 
Nicolas Roard <nicolas@roard.com> 
PGP : http://www.roard.com/download/key.gpg.asc
Work for something because it is good, not just because 
it stands a chance to succeed.  - Vaclav Havel