Re: Changes I've been thinking of...

[Michael Thaler]

Hi,

> I'm one of them. I got interested into GNUstep also because of it looks.
> I love windowmaker. It is the only thing I use on free Unices.
> It is sleek, unobtrusive, professional. The same should be true for
>  GNUstep. GNUstep stuff is generally almost there, but there are drawing
>  glitches, ugly icons, imperfectly done interfaces which makes it not on
>  par with openstep. And we should be even better. Improved, more complete.

I really dislike the term "looks professional". How do you define "looks 
professional"? I think the only sane definition of "looks professional" is that 
something that looks professional is something that is used for professional 
work. By this definition Windows XP / Vista, KDE, Gnome and MacOS X all look 
professional because they are used for professional work.

Why is a user interface more "professional" if all buttons are squared, 
everything is gray and there are no gradients? 

In my opinion, to do professional work, it is much more important to have 
professional tools (IDEs etc.) then to have no gradients and square buttons.

> Also, this concept of "outdated" is really ridiculous. Style has no
> time. People like Rolex. Waterman. Montblanc. Breguet.
> People like Vetiver, 4711 Koelnisch Wasser.
> People like Veuve Cliquot Poinsardin.
> These items are made as our fathers or our grand-fatehrs could have
> bought them. Serious people like them because they are masterpieces.

Well, most people I know (scientists, engineers etc.) think that wasting money 
for a Rolex is ridiculous. I don't even think that a Rolex looks good. I 
consider a Rolex a status symbol that is not worth its money because you can 
get better, cheaper, better looking (this is my personal opinion) for less 
money. 

Maybe you consider scientists and engineer not serious people, but I do and I 
know lots of serious people (by my definition) that consider all you mentioned 
above as waste of money.

And I don't buy that masterpieces made by our farthers cannot be improved. 
Imagine you build a real masterpiece carriage one hundred years ago when there 
were no cars. How many people would buy a carriage instead of an ordinary car 
today just because the carriage is a real masterpiece and an ordinary car is 
just an ordinary car?

The NeXTSTEP GUI was designed fifteen years ago when it was basically not 
possible to have round buttons, gradients, transparency, shadows etc. because 
the hardware was not powerful enough for that. But the world moved on and 
today almost nobody wants to have square buttons, no gradients etc. (There are 
certainly people today which would prefer to have a masterpiece carriage 
instead of an ordinary car, but most people that just need something to go to 
work would certainly take the car).

> Now of course, other people change dresses every few months, have a
> Swatch, use the latest perfume from Kiko or Pupa or whatever. They
> drink  some fashion-drink like bacardi breezer.

So what? People did not use cell-phones, GPS receivers, DVD burners, > 1 TB 
hard drives etc. 20 years ago. Now they do. Is that a good thing or a bad?

The gnustep project is about 15 years old, older then both KDE and GNOME. How 
many developers does gnustep have today and how many does KDE (or GNOME) have?
Why are there so many people working on KDE and GNOME, but almost none working 
on Gnustep?

Looking at

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Gnustep.png
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/KDE_4.png
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7b/Gnome-2.28.png

I guess most people start a gnustep application exactly once. After that they 
probably stay with KDE or GNOME. Obviously there is a minority that prefers 
the NeXTSTEP look. And if it is the aim of gnustep to develop applications / a 
desktop for this minority, then there is nothing wrong with the direction the 
gnustep project is going. But if the gnustep projects wants to increase the 
number of users and developers, I think it is absolutely necessary to improve 
/ change the look and feel to something more familiar / pleasent for typical 
OSS users.

Greetings,
Michael