Re: Starting GNUstep (Debian)

[Philippe C . D . Robert]

On Sep 23, 2004, at 7:45 PM, Alex Perez wrote:
> Patrix wrote:
>
> > This is a good point and, imho, one of the reasons GNOME and KDE are
> > more widely used - I remember using KDE 0.0.2 or whatever early
> > version they had, and I could _use_ it. It had a window manager, a
> > panel and a file manager that crashed every time I dragged something
> > to the trash. But I could use it.
>
> G.I.N.A.D.E. G.I.N.A.D.E. G.I.N.A.D.E. G.I.N.A.D.E. G.I.N.A.D.E.
> G N U S T E P   I S   N O T  A  D E S K T O P   E N V I R O N M E N T

G.S.B.A.D.E G.S.B.A.D.E G.S.B.A.D.E G.S.B.A.D.E G.S.B.A.D.E G.S.B.A.D.E
G N U S T EP  S H O U L D  B E  A  D E S K T O P  E N V I R O N M E N T

> Seriously, it's not. There are several projects to *USE* GNUstep in a 
> gnustep-centric development environment, but what you are doing is 
> akin to calling 'kdelibs' a "Desktop Environment". You are comparing 
> apples to oranges, and not even realizing it.

Seriously, it should be. This is IMHHO the main reason for its low 
acceptance, or should I say complete lack of acceptance....?

WRT to wording, KDE is the desktop environment which uses several 
kdelibs. The same should hold for GNUstep, GNUstep should be the 
desktop environment which uses our gnustep-* libs (among others). 
GNUstep is more than just some libs, right now it is the "development 
environment" which uses and includes the gnustep-* libs.

In fact, today we have a weird situation because officially GS is not a 
desktop environment, but the website mentions the "GNUstep user 
experience" or "official GNUstep applications", totally weird IMHO for 
an "OO framework and tool set"....

> > GNUstep however always maintained they were implementing the OpenStep
> > api and not a desktop environment, and for a long while didn't have a
> > usable environment (except for GNUMail.app). So of course, users like
> > me would see this and say - hm? There's nothing to use here and move
> > on to gnome or kde, even though I liked the elegance of the *step gui
> > and api.
> GNUMail is not an "environment" so I don't see your point. Yes it's 
> true that we maintain that GNUstep is not a desktop environment 
> because IT IS NOT. There are many, many, many things that a real 
> desktop environment needs to provide which GNUstep does not, will not, 
> and should not provide.

It is not a desktop because some people insist it is not, but not 
because it cannot be(come) one.

> That shouldn't be an option, because GNUstep is not a desktop 
> environment. WindowMaker should be started, and then from there the 
> various GNUstep apps should be started.

So you wouldn't call KDE a desktop environment, because according to 
your reasoning kwm is first being started and from there various apps 
are launched which use the kdelibs and whatsoever? Common, this is just 
ridiculous!

> > > It was pointed out to me that unlike KDE and GNOME, GNUstep is not a
> > > desktop environment.  I question the value of such a distinction.
> The fact that you question it merely means you don't know what you're 
> talking about. Would you call "Cocoa" a desktop environment? No, 
> because that's simply not what it is. GNUstep is akin to Cocoa's 
> Foundation and AppKit.

GNUstep is not just AppKit + FoundationKit, GNUstep is a "development 
environment", it consists of these 2 frameworks but it also includes 
tools and some apps.

The (old...) question IMHO is: is a development environment sufficient, 
is this really what users/developers expect from GNUstep? Are you as a 
developer confident, that an app(*) written using GNUstep (the various 
libs) will be accepted by users which are using the KDE or GNOME 
desktop environment? Do you really believe users accept applications 
which do not integrate 100% in their desktop environment of choice? Are 
you as a user willing to use apps which do not fit into your 
environment, unless you have to? Personally I do not believe so. And 
that's why I believe GNUstep in its current form is doomed to fail, not 
to say it already did - unless of course it is the goal to attract very 
few developers which only develop custom, inhouse applications using 
GNUstep...

cheers,

-Phil

(*): I am talking about apps here having a UI, of course.
--
Philippe C.D. Robert
http://reality.sgi.com/probert/