Re: GNUstep Base OpenStep Compliance

[Jeff Teunissen]

Helge Hess wrote:

> Richard Frith-Macdonald wrote:
> >> Chasing an actively developed, and changing API, and expecting to
> >> base a stable system on it is, in my opinion, folly.
> > But *NOBODY* proposes that.
> 
> Partly because Cocoa isn't really a changing API ;-) If that would be
> the case, Apple would have a huge problems having to support thousands
> of developers and multimillions of lines of code.

Cocoa *is* a changing API. There's stuff going on behind the scenes to
keep runtime compatibility (checking the version that program X was
compiled with, and using behavior consistent with that version of the
API), but they give no indications that you will have continued source
compatibility. Many people had to change their programs between 10.1 and
10.2, but a program compiled on 10.1 would generally continue to work on
10.2. This is in part caused by the _way_ Apple are changing Cocoa.

My _core_ issue with OS X is that Cocoa is a proprietary API that happens
to have a significant (currently, very large) overlap with OpenStep. It's
a threat to a Free Software OpenStep, not a benefit for it. It threatens
our control over the future development of our own software.

Supporting Cocoa APIs doesn't make GNUstep more attractive, it makes Cocoa
more attractive...at the _expense_ of free operating systems and free
software in general.

[snip]

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