Request: GNUstep GUI Windows Installer

[Alex Perez]

Bobby,

The next time you create an e-mail, please give it a subject as this is 
one of 
the criteria that many spam-detection-facilities use to evaluate e-mails 
fro possible spam. That and it's just considered bad netiquette.

Now for my reply...

On Mon, 25 Oct 2004, Bobby Skinner wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> Please forward this to where ever it should really go.
For your future reference, it should have gone to the discuss-gnustep 
mailing list, which I've also sent my reply to.

> I would like to use GNUStep to develop for windows. I would like to 
> suggest that you create a windows installer that includes everything 
> you need to develop GNUStep applications on windows. There is one that 
> puts the base stuff on, but you still have to get gorm, project center 
> and the nib translation utilities separately. I am sure that I will 
> have time to do this at some point, but it has been just enough hassle 
> to make me postpone it. I am not sure when I will have time to do it, 
> because I am not sure if it is even really usable for windows yet.

This is already in the process of being accomplished, so your wait will 
not be long. The individual who has said he would like to create it is 
going to have the free time to do it in under a month now, so we should 
see something soonish. There's a definate need for it, and that need is in 
the process of being addressed. As far sa "usable" goes, nobody seems to 
really agree what that innocuous word means. The GUI applications do not 
yet look like native windows apps, so if that's what you're looking for, 
it doesn't exist (yet). From my personal experience, GUI apps work, with a 
few notable limitations (pasteboard, I think, and a few other 
things...also printing)

> I believe such an installer would increase the acceptance of GNUStep. I 
> have used Cocoa on the mac, however I get paid to develop on windows 
> and would like to beable to go cross-platform. Cocoa (and GNUStep on 
> linux) work great. But I have not seen the tools work on windows, and 
> However if I could just install and code, I would probably evaluate it 
> quickly.
The problem with providing installers is that then we attract a crowd of 
people who have no interest in contributing to GNUstep. They just ask for 
more and more features, and their selfish ways do not help the fact that 
we need more active GNUstep developer/contributors. This is part of the 
way Open Source works,a nd a lot of for-profit cocoa and windoze 
programmers forget that this is simply how the system works, and they need 
to accept that if they want certain things done.

> just a suggestion.
And we thank you for it.