Re: really attracting developers

[Andreas Höschler]

Hi all,

> Whats keeping other developers from gnustep?
>
> incomplete ide?
> incomplete nextstep based system?
> incomplete libraries?
>
> i don't buy the general applications unavailability argument. we are
> talking about people who want to create apps under gnustep.
>
> i don't buy the appearance argument either.

I doubt that any developer that got deep enough into the OPENSTEP/Cocoa 
specification will ever want to work with any other environment again. 
Cocoa/GNUstep is a killer from a developer standpoint. However, we do 
not only program for fun. A few of us also have to earn some bucks for 
their living and that means we have to find customers that use our 
software :-)

I started an attempt to migrate one of our customers from MacOSX to 
GNUstep (Solaris, Sun Ray). Although the Sun Ray approach has a bunch 
of advantages over Macs as clients (lower price per workplace, WANable, 
sessions can be bound to smart cards,...) the customer decided to 
purchase more Macs instead of Sun Rays. The argument: "This looks 
awful. No, I want Macs." (Footnote: We migrated this customer from 
Windows to Mac a few years ago)

Of course beating a Mac in the category Look & Feel is close to 
impossible even when using Cameleon. You might succeed in trying to 
migrate a user from Windows to GNUstep (NeXTstep theme), but you 
probably will never succeed in convincing someone to discard its Mac 
and use GNUstep instead. Nevertheless we want to do exactly that since 
Sun Rays and Solaris have so many other advantages. A sexy Look & Feel 
of GNUstep is important if we want to convince customers to use GNUstep 
apps for their daily needs.

Regards,

  Andreas