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

[Gregory Casamento]

Doc,

On Thu, Dec 19, 2013 at 2:27 PM, Doc O'Leary <droleary@7usenet2013.subsume.com> wrote:

In article <mailman.9679.1387478362.10748.discuss-gnustep@gnu.org>,

 Gregory Casamento <greg.casamento@gmail.com> wrote:

> You wanted evidence that leadership is open to discussion. Consider it open
> for discussion.  I have said many times in the past that we are willing to
> listen to anything that can improve this project as a whole.  I don't think

> any good ideas are being rejected from the get go.

They certainly don't seem to be leading to discussions that improve the
overall direction of the project.  Case in point is my root "rant" to
this discussion that got dropped: what *is* the current message of
GNUstep?  Do people agree that the website is a confused mess when it
comes to communicating that message?

I agree with you that the website is confused and disorganized.   It has needed a major revamp for a very long time.  The website is very unclear when communicating the message that GNUstep is intended to be, first and foremost, a Development environment of it's own which follows Cocoa and, secondly, a way to port applications from Mac to any other platform GNUstep supports.  I think you'll agree that the kickstarter campaign very much drove this idea home.   So the problem is not one of the community not being behind these ideas, but that the website doesn't effectively communicate the advantages of GNUstep and the needs of the GNUstep community.

 

If you can help us come up with a design for the website that works, I'm sure that the community would be willing to embrace it.

A great example of the underlying issue is how you treat the Mac/iOS.
What *should* be a platform of coders and existing apps you'd like to
get over to GNUstep, you instead seem actively hostile towards.  You
essentially tell OS X users to get lost!  It makes no sense to me that
*that* is the result of the MacPorts issues.

Unfortunately, this is not a GNUstep specific issue.  We don't have control over the macports versions of our stuff any more than we have control over how debian packages GNUstep.   The issue is a Macports issue.   Every email I've seen says this.  Perhaps the best way to handle this is to find a way to allow Mac users to build the relevant portions of GNUstep on the Mac if they need to.  I must confess, however, that I don't fully understand the need to run GNUstep apps on Mac since it is almost akin to trying to download and use WINE on Windows.

I believe we need a solution to this problem, but I don't know what that solution should be.  Should we talk to the MacPorts folks about the issues?

> I think what Ivan is
> trying to say is the same thing that I have discovered and that is that
> best way to do anything in an open source project is to do it and see what
> happens.

And what I'm trying to say is that, in my experience, that is just so
much wasted effort without understanding the big picture.  Why would I
bother working up a Mac-friendly best practices HOWTO if the overall
desire of the GNUstep community is to remain hostile to them?  Same goes
for coding; don't slap away the hands that know how to scratch your itch.

The GNUstep community is not hostile to them.  I've, personally, spent too many years going to conferences as a vendor (GNUstep booth) and speaking at Cocoaheads Mac developer user group meetings in New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware to have the idea that we are hostile persist any longer.   We are not hostile to Mac developers.  *Period*  

> I would very much like to capitalize on the popularity of UIKit, the
> problem has only been one of time for me personally.  We can use all the
> help we can get on GNUstep.   I and others welcome any contributions you
> are able to provide or help us to achieve.

So you say here, but where is that being communicated to the larger
community on the website or elsewhere?  These are the harsh realities
that need to be resolved.  I clearly have strong opinions on what should
be done, but I still have *zero* idea whether or not that is the
direction GNUstep *actively* wants to go.  I mean, there is *nothing* on
the website that indicates any knowledge of the existence of iOS, let
alone any efforts to "capitalize on the popularity".  Either that needs
to be changed or it needs to be further discussed.

Agreed, it should be on GNUstep's website.   There is some question, however, if any effort in implementing UIKit should be done as part of GNUstep or part of another project.

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Gregory Casamento
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