Re: GNUstep roadmap (was Re: [Suggestion] GNUstep-test for quality control)

[Pablo Di Noto]

Hi guys,

Just my impression about this whole issue of GNUstep roadmap.
There is something I feel nobody is having on mind: There are standalone 
apps.

Not everybody uses a computer for personal computing (like reading email 
while listening to their MP3 collection while exchanging information 
between the spreadsheet application and the presentation software).

I see a lot of places (Argentina, Brazil, Germany and USA) where there 
are still windows 95/98 computers that are networked only to reach a 
central server by terminal emulation. With the (unfortunate) popularity 
of Windows development tools, now there are lots of horrible windows 
apps that replaced the 80x32 terminal emulation screen with horrible 
VisualBasic UIs and are the only app being run by the user. On these 
systems, Windows just provides the bluescreen support.

As an example: I would like to make a simple Point-of-Sale program for 
my brother.
It does not require a complex or eye-candy UI. In fact the more simple 
the better.
It does not have to run on a particular OS, but I prefer a *nix which 
runs on slow Pentiums.
Technically, GNUstep can do it. And I would love to do it with GNUstep.
I would certainly benefit if I could use a DB abstraction so convenient 
as GDL2.

Roadblocks I see now are:
- GNUstep insists being a whole NeXTish thing (starting a gdomap, gdnc, 
gpbs)
- GNUstep apps use some basic UI items in a strange way for a mortal 
user (don't kill me please, but I mean the vertical menus here...)
- GNUstep is not easy to install (I lost track how many times I've built 
the whole set to see a ProjectCenter work without crashing)
- GDL2 is really hard to install and looks like kernel hacking to me.

So my 2c for the roadmap:

-- 1
Make GNUstep friendly to a standalone App:
Allow turning off the daemons which are not needed. Just one GNUstep app 
could be running. No drag and drop is going to happen. May be the mouse 
is not going to be used often.

I think this could be an AppKit option.

-- 2
Keep the NeXT spirit, but be flexible allowing optional UI changes if 
the app requires it.

Example: Let's say Bjorn Giesler's Addresses app evolves into a powerful 
contact information manager, with unique consolidation features, 
international address support, etc. etc. and two users like to use it, 
because other similar applications dont have such features.

User A has Mandrake/KDE system. It downloads the application, which is 
for Linux. Ok. It uncompresses into a strange executable within a 
Addresses.app directory (weird...) but the user clicks on a alias and 
the app is there. No daemons. No services. Ok, some weird GNUstep 
directories get created to hold preferences, but that does not harm. The 
application has menues more-or-less like the rest...

User B, a real-GNUstepper. Siting in front of his/her GNUstep box (a 
debian linux tweaked distro with a nice NeXTish WM which keeps getting 
better and better). Addresses now runs with all the supporting daemons, 
so it nows provides Services to other GNUstep apps, exchanges Addresses 
with other remote copies of the same app in the LAN using DO, it detects 
that the SystemNotificationManager is running, so it listens to 
system-wide events and knows when the user opens his/her laptop on a 
different country by the change of network location, and now phone 
numbers are relative to the new country, etc. etc.

-- 3
Make GNUstep more easily installable.
Either going the way of a GNUstep-centric distribution (in the linux/BSD 
world) or by careful and updated packaging. For a Linux user, GNUstep 
should be a dependency for an application the users wants.

-- 4
Make GNUstop run easily in Windows.
Who cares if the UI metaphor is lost? Where is the UI interaction 
between a SAP client and WindowsXP?? Copy and Paste?? Not to mention all 
those VisualBasic business apps, or these terminal emulator windows.

-- 5
Give more thrust to GDL2 and GSWeb. These could become a honeypot for 
business apps developers.

Please excuse the long posting.
Have a nice weekend!
///Pablo