Re: Kickstarter was not successful... but it did help things...

[David Chisnall]

On 12 Sep 2013, at 10:08, Graham Lee <graham@iamleeg.com> wrote:

> On 12 Sep 2013, at 09:20, David Chisnall <theraven@sucs.org> wrote:
> 
>> I believe that 'compatibility with OS X 10.x' as a goal is fundamentally 
>> flawed, for three reasons:
> 
> Hi David,
> 
> I'd like to add this reason:
> 
> 4. Not many high-profile Cocoa/Cocoa Touch devs actually _care_ about 
> write-once-build-everywhere. They think that the Mac (or iPhone or iPad) is 
> the best thing ever, and therefore aren't going to release Windows (or 
> Android) versions of their apps even if it were zero cost, zero effort. That 
> means that if GNUstep's target audience is Apple platform devs, it's really 
> not going to get much of a profile.
> 
> Now I'm not saying that Apple platforms devs _are_ the target, you (and 
> particularly Greg as Chief Maintainer) may have other goals in mind. But if 
> they are, then I'd suggest that there are ways to improve the project's 
> standing amongst them that aren't providing API compatibility with Mac OS X. 
> The reason I've been (slowly) working on some GNUstep Web projects, for 
> example, is to be able to say "you can do your server backend code using the 
> skills you've already acquired while writing your apps". That position would 
> make GNUstep a complement to, rather than a replacement for, Mac OS X or 
> iOS—it puts it in the same category as something like objective-cloud.com. 
> We're still low visibility there, but if you search for "objective-c server" 
> then you (or at least I) get a bunch of my blog posts and Nicola's FOSDEM 
> talk which we could promote more :-). That talk's here: 
> http://www.slideshare.net/guest9efd1a1/building-server-applications-using-objectivec-and-gnustep
>  and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhnZMpGiL6s
> 
> As ever if I've completely missed the point then please correct me.

I think we have several categories of potential GNUstep-users:

- People who like the idea of Free Software, but use a Mac because it's easier 
for them.  They want to write code on OS X, but they'd quite like it to work on 
other platforms too.

- Commercial developers, who have an Apple-only app, but would like it to run 
on Windows / Android if it were a low-cost port, but don't want to invest much 
effort in it.  Some may want to just ensure that it works, even if they have no 
intention of releasing it, so if Apple releases a clone of their flagship 
product as part of their standard install they have a fallback position.

- Apple / NeXT refugees, who liked the platform once but don't like where it's 
gone and want to build something that starts from the same roots but goes in a 
different direction

- Developers who have had little or no experience with Apple or NeXT, but like 
the structure of OpenStep and Objective-C

- Developers who are using Apple on the client and want to use the same skills 
on the server

- Developers who are writing for *NIX using some other framework and want 
something better

It's important to consider all of these.

David


-- Sent from my PDP-11