Re: NSToolbar (was Re: Portability/Compatability betweenGNUstep<---> Cocoa...)

[Jason Clouse]

On 2004-01-14 09:21:03 -0500 Jeff Teunissen <deek@d2dc.net> wrote:
> Remember OS/2?  Even though lots of people used it, even though IBM 
> created a
> very good Win16 (and later a Win32) portability library, vendors 
> generally
> didn't port their Windows software. There were a few ports, but not 
> nearly
> enough.

It was proprietary, profit-driven software; GNUstep is not.  If 
GNUstep followed the profit-driven model, it would have been dead 
*years ago*.  The venture capital would have dried up.

> How many vendors have ported their Windows software to Linux? At last 
> count,
> one, even though there exists a mostly-complete Win32 API (libwine) 
> for
> Linux/BSD on x86...one which can even use DLLs. MFC even works, and 
> there is
> ONE vendor.

That's totally irrelevant to our case.  All we need to know is this:

1. There are people interested in porting their stuff to GNUstep.  No, 
not millions of them.  But there are some.  I've talked to them.

2. Those people are important.

> Lessee, what else is there...oh yeah, how about the fact that GNUstep 
> can
> never possibly implement the functionality that Mac OS X developers 
> expect?

So we shouldn't try to do ANY of it?  Remember, the goal is to make it 
easier than it is now, not perfect.  And just to make sure we don't 
get to an argument that's unnecessary, let me remind you of the 
PortabilityKit.

> Further, their new stuff
> is nearly all patented out the wazoo, so even if people WANTED to do 
> it,
> they couldn't.

There are ways around this: off-shore hosting and proxy release.

To sum up, the PortabilityKit allays your fears.  I think you're wrong 
about portability being a goal but it doesn't much matter since there 
will be another project to provide a solution.  I think we've beat 
this horse to death now.  C'est finis.