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

[Philippe C . D . Robert]

Hi Philipp,

this is not intended to be personal, sorry if it comes along this way.

On Thursday, October 23, 2003, at 01:04  Uhr, Philip Mötteli wrote:
> > > > > 2. Many programs do not use AppKit. E. g. servers and Web-programs.
> > > > I know, there is a shortage of GNUstep apps, but you gotta admit 
> > > > that a LOT of progress has been made this year!
> > > The hugest prograss is having WOF: GDL2 and GSWeb.
> > This is your opinion. There are others, of course.
>
> If you have read my postings, than you have surely noticed, that I 
> started my posting with "just my 2c"? Ok. So if you excuse me of not 
> having repeated this in every second phrase for you. And in any case, 
> you don't need to remind me, that this is my opinion. Be assured, I 
> know that.

Why are you getting so angry? As I understand it you see GNUstep as a 
clone of OpenStep (read: the API spec) plus some other libraries. Now 
there are others which would like to see GNUstep as an OPENSTEP clone, 
the environment based among other things on OpenStep - and on OPENSTEP 
WO did not play an important role from a user's perspective, so you 
might understand why I made my statement.

BTW OpenStep as such was never successful, SUN dropped their 
implementation and NeXT almost went out of business...

> > Besides it is funny that you mention these 2, as they are not part of 
> > OpenStep at all,
>
> This is out of the context: I never said GDL or GSW are part of 
> OpenStep, but a big reason to make GS more widely known and used. 
> That's unfair to produce the impression, I could have said that. Are 
> you trying to let me look stupid?

No, but the context is what GNUstep should be, no? I got the impression 
that you see GNUstep as a pure "OpenStep API spec" clone, this is why I 
said this. It is as you'd say that because of gtk the gnu libc has 
become more widely known, to put it to an extreme.

> > No, we do not have it on Windows, we have only parts of it working on 
> > Windows, maybe we will have it at some point in the future. Maybe 
> > not. So much about cross-platform API.
>
> Again, have you read my postings? Please don't pronounce any opinion 
> under your name, if you didn't read what your talking about: I've been 
> initally talking about the most

I did.

>  (in my eyes (just for you Phil!)) important thing to do concerning 
> GS: completing and debugging GS on all platforms. With that, I 
> specifically meant the version for Windows.

I agree with you on completing the API, of course. But I do not agree 
with the cross platform aspect. For you (and others) GS is AppKit + 
FoundationKit and thus this is important from your perspective - and I 
bet you are not even that much interested in the AppKit but more in the 
FoundationKit, GDL2 and GSWeb, am I correct? :) I can understand the 
reasoning behind it, but I do not share it - I just do not want to see 
GNUstep going the same way NeXT did.

So for some of us the cross-platform aspect (=Windows) is probably not 
very interesting. Some of us are not interested in a Windows port of 
the API because what we want is the GNUstep enduser environment on top 
of a Unix based OS, we just do not care about Windows. So personally I 
think it is wasted effort to work on that. But then it is just my 
view...

>  Basically that's why I made this statement: Before making whole GS 
> distributions and desktops and so on, we should complete, where the 
> real point of GS as an OpenStep implementation is. But you didn't read 
> that part, did you? But still making comments here? I don't feel good 
> in correcting such comments, that make me look so stupid. Makes me 
> aggressive, I'm sorry.

Gosh I did understand what you wrote, I just do not share the same 
opinion. And maybe I did not like the way you have phrased your 
comments, too. Sorry if I was a little picky then. But to me it just 
looks like you cannot accept the fact that there are people on this 
list who do not have the same vision or goals for GNUstep as you do. To 
use the real point of GS is NOT the OpenStep spec conformance, it is 
the environment (based on GS which is based on OpenStep and so on).

> > Moreover, how can an API only make sense if it requires tools like 
> > pb-server? This indicates to me that it actually is more than an API.
>
> Why? An API offers a functionality. That's perhaps the reason, why 
> it's not called a library.
> Apart from that, if you don't agree with the naming, then ask NeXT or 
> Apple. They called it like that.

Yes, I had "library" in mind here, sorry. What I wanted to say actually 
is that GS is an environment and not just a set of libraries because it 
contains daemons and so on.

> > > > i'm making SimplyGNUstep
> > > Nice, but how is the compatibility to the other managers like KDE? 
> > > Unfortunately, most of the programs I use, are made for Gnome or >>> 
> > > KDE.
> >
> > Are you using them because you have no better alternative or are you 
> > using them because they perfectly fit your needs?
>
> I don't think that ever a program will perfectly fit my needs. It's 
> always the best alternative, that I choose. Everything is relative 
> here.

Yes, I agree, and thus it could also be a GS app, even if it is not yet 
written, and maybe it would be an even better alternative :-)

-Phil
--
Philippe C.D. Robert
http://www.nice.ch/~phip