Re: Which ObjC2.0 features are missing in the latest GCC?

[Johannes Brakensiek]

On 26 Nov 2019, at 23:43, Fred Kiefer wrote:

That could be said about all backward-compatibility. A follow up question
is, does it hold us back enough to justify breaking compatibility? It seems
some people think yes, and others think no. We're at a stalemate, where no
progress can be expected to take place. For things to move forward, either
one side has to give in, or both sides can compromise and agree to a middle
ground.

You described the dilemma very well. (And I also want to thank David and Ivan to their excellent contributions to this thread.) Some people are very conservative in this group. But others have a bit too much wishful thinking. I myself would not mind too much loosing gcc but loosing active developers and packagers. Sadly for some this doesn’t seem to be an argument.

I think for those who have to do the decision (who’s that anyways, the active contributors?) this probably will be good reason („argument“ ;)) as this is a community of people working non-profit who seem to have strong feelings regarding some options.

What I want to tell (being quite new to this community and not having these strong bindings) is there are some reasons that are mainly considered outside of this mailing list which should be important here as well, imho.

To name a few (just referring to what I’ve read, not meant as a personal insult at all):

• the GNUstep project is largely considered dead
• the only bigger free software project relying on GNUstep which seems to be of greater relevance and extension is SOGo, which relies on Foundation and GNUstep web, but not on AppKit (any of the devs active here?)
• German companies that used GNUstep told me they already switched to using Foundation and GNUsteb web only as users did not accept the AppKit interface anymore

So, if people like the SOGo devs would say they need GCC because they are relying on it and Foundation/GNUstep web, I’d say it would be a very reasonable decision to keep Foundation and GNUstep web compatible to GCC.

But if there are no bigger projects depending on a GCC AppKit it should be a first class aim of the project to develop it to a state that others would consider picking it up and using it for their projects - imo. Yes, that’s investing into future and it comes at the cost and risk of not being successful, of course. But please bear in mind that probably there are a lot more devs (here just being a few of them trying to give them a voice) that evaluate which platform to use for their apps and probably pass by and choose Qt or a web based platform.

I think that’s a pity as GNUstep AppKit could be highly attractive for Cocoa ObjC devs wanting to port their apps to Linux and a free environment (and maybe don’t want switch to Swift yet). If you don’t want that target audience it’s your decision, but I’d be interested to know who’s your target audience then? Of course you can do it just for yourself, but I think it’s unlikely others will join then.

Johannes