Re: Discuss-gnustep Digest, Vol 87, Issue 24

[David Chisnall]

On 16 Feb 2010, at 21:32, J. Jordan wrote:

> Yeah, I see that now.  Sorry to waste all of you time, I see now that this 
> project has no future, the last thing the Open Source world needs is another 
> development environment.  I will continue to search the web for usable 
> GNUstep applications or whatever I should call them since GNUstep is not  
> supposed to have any applications.  I'll stay off of this mailing list as 
> best I can, but I am going to have to keep using the apps-gnustep list 
> because that is the only place to get or give any advice on getting apps to 
> run.  I will do my best not to bother you GOD-LIKE develpers again.

I've largely ignored this thread, but so far you have insulted people, 
disregarded every opinion that doesn't agree with your own, misrepresented 
other people's opinions and generally been abrasive to anyone who has tried to 
answer your questions.   

You are replying with a long rant to someone who merely told you that trying to 
drum up interest in GNUstep on the GNUstep-discuss list is not required.  He is 
right.  If people aren't already interested in GNUstep, they won't be 
subscribed to this list.  This is the list for people who are interested in 
GNUstep already.  It's like going into the Vatican to try to drum up interest 
in catholicism and then acting offended when someone tells you that you are 
wasting your time.

GNUstep is a developer environment.  That is what it is and what it is good at. 
 It is a set of frameworks implementing all of OpenStep, some enhancements, and 
aiming towards compatibility with the Foundation and AppKit (and, more 
recently, CoreFoundation and CoreGraphics) frameworks from OS X.  This is what 
it says on the front page of the web site.

If you want a desktop environment, there are two approaches currently being 
taken to build an environment.  GAP and Backbone are trying to build something 
close to the NeXT ideal, with a traditional application model, Étoilé is trying 
to build something with closer integration between reusable components.  I'm 
sorry that the flowers offended you, but everything anyone says to you seems to 
have caused offence so far, so I'm not really surprised.

No one said that GNUstep is not meant to have applications.  The point of GAP 
is to collect applications developed on top of GNUstep, but that is the 
important phrase: on top of.  Applications (with a few exceptions, like GORM) 
are not part of GNUstep.  GNUstep exists to make their development possible, 
just as GCC or Qt does, but you would not go to the GCC or Qt mailing list and 
tell them that they should be writing applications and not working on their own 
project.

Many of us, in addition to working on GNUstep, work on environments built on 
top of GNUstep and on GNUstep applications, but these are separate projects.  
They benefit from GNUstep - Étoilé certainly wouldn't have been possible 
without GNUstep - but they are not GNUstep.  

We welcome constructive suggestions and even more, we welcome contributions of 
code, but if the only reason you came to this list was to leave flames and 
insults then I suggest that you find somewhere else for them.  I was trying to 
think of somewhere to suggest, but, quite frankly, there aren't any projects 
that I dislike enough to wish that they receive the kind of emails you have 
been sending.  

Perhaps you should try the OpenBSD list.  I think they'd be entertained to hear 
how their project has no future and that the last thing Open Source needs is 
another UNIX-like operating system.  I suspect, however, that their replies 
would be a lot less restrained than mine...

David