Re: [Suggestion] GNUstep-test for quality control

[Philippe C.D. Robert]

Hi Alex,

On Friday, October 17, 2003, at 10:59  Uhr, Alexander Malmberg wrote:
> > IMHO the real problem is that GNUstep is only promoted as development
> > environment. I never understood the reasoning behind this strategy, 
> > but
> > so it is. Personally I doubt that there are many developers out there
> > who are interested in writing code for an API which is not part of an
> > entire desktop solution and/or does not fit nicely into existing
> > environments (in these days).
>
> But there are such developers, and although I have little personal
> interest in it, I don't see any reason why they shouldn't be able to 
> use
> GNUstep that way. Thus, GNUstep is a development environment. IMO, it
> should remain that way; the constraints we have on GNUstep (in terms of
> portability and other demands) effectively prevent it from becoming a
> good desktop. (In fact, adding desktop-level features just makes it
> harder for the actual desktops to do it properly.)

I know that 'it kind of works'  in that way, too, but only kind of... 
maybe these projects only need more time, but then how long is all this 
already in the works? ...

Personally I am not a huge believer of real cross-platform desktops - 
not even NeXT could integrate its GUI seamlessly into Windows for 
example. Besides I never asked for desktop level features as part of 
the GNUstep API, what I talked about was to shift the focus of the 
GNUstep project as such towards a desktop project.

BTW the portability aspect for the GUI part is only interesting for X11 
based systems IMO, and then I don't see the constraints you mention :-)

> If you're interested in a desktop environment using GNUstep, Backbone 
> is
> one (that I and a few others are working on), SimplyGNUstep is one
> (sortof) (and LinuxSTEP included one). All are in development. If you
> find one you like, you're very welcome to help. :-)

I am interested, but unfortunately I do not have that much time anymore 
to work actively on such (side) projects in these days. But still, is 
there a web page or resource repository for Backbone?

-Phil
--
Philippe C.D. Robert
http://www.nice.ch/~phip