Re: Known MacOS programmer about WO/EOF

[Frederico Muñoz]

Hello,

On 2005-03-30 10:28:44 +0100 Tabitha McNerney <tabithamc@gmail.com> 
wrote:
> The momentum behind the Mac seems to be growing. Attention was noted
> in several blogs and RSS feeds by Paul Graham's blog posted yesterday
> titled, "Return of the Mac" ... now combined with the interview with
> the Wolf the day before, one has to wonder if there is going to be a
> shift toward Apple over the next ten years? Here's the URI to the post
> with a header excerpt that kind of looks like an abstract to the post
> (by the way to add fuel to the fire, Linus Torvolds recently admitted
> to using a Mac although for Linux PPC and I don't think he's using Mac
> OS X):
>
> http://www.paulgraham.com/mac.html
>
> All the best hackers I know are gradually switching to Macs. My friend
> Robert said his whole research group at MIT recently bought themselves
> Powerbooks. These guys are not the graphic designers and grandmas who
> were buying Macs at Apple's low point in the mid 1990s. They're about
> as hardcore OS hackers as you can get.

Let me just intrude in this thread to share my personal view on this.

I don't want to rain in anyones parade, but Apple's marketshare, while 
great for Apple stockholders, isn't in direct relation with more 
developers for GNUstep. Just a cursory look at the threads sent by 
Manuel - and that is just a sample, I have had personal talks with 
people that develop for OSX - makes it clear that there is an enormous 
gap between the mindsets of the traditional Apple developers (I''m not 
even mentioning users...), including those developers that used to 
develop for NeXT and made the jump, and the GNUstep project and 
community. I've personaly saw the unhiden scorn in the words of OSX 
developers (read: people that develop for OSX, not OSX core Apple 
developers) when refering to GNUstep and related projects. The 
portings aren't there not because of technical inadequacy (which 
sometimes exists), but mainly because it isn't something that most of 
them care.

There is bound to exist some spillover, but mainly because of Unix 
users that convert to OSX. And, since this was your point, let me just 
add that I've seen an interest effect on people that "switch" from a 
free Unice to OSX: they stop caring about their previous concerns like 
"portable". Their new found heaver provides everything they want (and 
that's great), but they to become rather indiferent to everything 
non-Apple. I've heard *many times* the "now that there is Cocoa, why 
care about GNUstep?" speech, that disregards the true objective and 
spirit of GNUstep. Even free software projects made for a Mac are many 
times indiferent to the possibility of making it work in GNustep.

Don't take this as an attack on Apple, OSX users or developers. I, 
given the opportunity, would probably also own a Powerbook. I'm just 
taking a realistic look at the idea that more Apple share == more 
GNUstep exposure. There are people that will be attracted to GNUstep, 
and this mailing-list is as example of people that recently became 
interested, many of them with a Mac background. But one doesn't 
immediatly follow the other.

Best Regards,


fsmunoz