Re: Thoughts triggered by these NeXTbuntu guys

[Jeremy Tregunna]

Just before I go here, let me just start by saying that I don't  
represent the GNUstep project, nor am I an active contributor. So  
feel free to skip the rest of this message and label it as noise.

On 06-08-30, at 00:12, Tima Vaisburd wrote:

> While many people here seem to think in terms of porting, I believe  
> that
> new development bears greater potential. I believe there are enough  
> people who
> have their own powerful ideas that would be happy to implement them  
> with
> our superior tools - if we provide ones.

The problem all comes in when you look at people who are spending  
time working on GNUstep, and those who think to themselves "it's not  
ready" and go on to something else. It's all these people passing  
GNUstep up for those reasons that GNUstep isn't further ahead today.  
Note that people who just don't have time, well, just don't have time  
so they're excluded from my description above.

> However, we do not have such tools to show, because the core  
> libraries -
> I mean four of the packages taken together - are still incomplete.

Not all of it, especially when you look at what GNUstep's goals are:  
OpenStep compatibility. gnustep-base is pretty complete if not 100%  
complete, plus many additions.

> Since I'm writing some image editor I happen to know that writing of
> images in any  format other than tiff is not implemented (and most  
> people
> need jpegs or pngs instead). We do not have a single backend that  
> works
> perfectly. The arts backend is prohibitely slow on remote connection.
> Xlib does not support rotation and poorly supports transparency.  
> There are
> cairo backend in development, but it's not released yet.
>
> I often connect to my home machine from work, and use X windows  
> over ssh
> and then cable internet provider. Since GNUstep is extremely slow  
> on that
> connection even with xlib it exludes any GNUstep program as a viable
> alternative to other X clients (but emacs, for instance, works  
> reasonably
> fast).
>
> These are things I can claim from my personal experience, but from  
> reading
> this mailing list I got the impression that there are other  
> unfinished areas.

You ever thought about doing anything to help alleviate those  
problems? I mean, it doesn't take a lot of effort to sign the  
copyright assignment and while you're waiting for the papers, you can  
easily work on your code to make it go. That said, I don't know what  
it would take to fix these issues.

> Yet Gregory Casamento writes:
>   "The libraries are complete in every sence that they need to be."
>
> By what standards?
>
> It seems to me that the project lost its leadership and its focus.
> Good leaders can set the goals and show path from one goal to another.
> I think we need that.
>
> Instead, it seems, we start things like facelifting, windows port,  
> desktop
> environments without completing the foundation, beginning the new
> project without finishing the old. That way there is nothing solid  
> to show
> to the mankind at any point in time - for years.

People get bored, and when you've only got about a dozen folks who  
are really committed to working on GNUstep, things can stagnate while  
real life gets in the way, and well, when they're as I say: bored. As  
I mentioned above, if more people would stop passing it by out of  
sheer "too much effort", then we'd be a lot further along.

> Then if we get a person who is able to contribute there is another  
> thing
> that I consider the second most important problem - the copyright
> assignment to FSF.
>
> This topic deserves another message with a different subject line,
> here I can only say that it presents a natural obstacle for people  
> who,
> like me, wants their work to be recognized by others.
> Thus the Nextbuntu's idea on removing this requirement seems to me
> quite appealing.

This I'm not so sure about. For a large project, requiring code to be  
copyright assigned to a neutral third party (or if run by committee,  
that group) can save you from cases where someone might get all pissy  
and decide they want to revoke distribution privileges for all their  
code they've contributed, setting the project back potentially many  
months. If you don't want to assign copyright, you don't have to --  
you can maintain a separate patchset outside of GNUstep. But please,  
don't confuse assigning copyright to the FSF as not getting credit.  
All you have to do is look through the GNUstep source code, and  
you'll see "written by..." even if the module has been rewritten,  
you'll usually see a "original implementation by ..."; credit is given.

As I mention before, copyright assignment, while a bit of a pain, is  
a benefit to the project more-so than a hindrance.

> To summarize: before going into new desktop environments, please  
> finish
> the core gui/back libraries to let people learn and use them for  
> their own
> purposes. Declare specific API version - being it Mac OSX 10.2.7 or  
> not -
> and make it work completely under at least one platform.

Different people have different desires; why should those people who  
want to work on a desktop environment work on -gui/-back when they  
may not want to?

> Thank you and sorry for being so long.

No worries. =]

> --Tima

--
Jeremy Tregunna
jtregunna@blurgle.ca