Re: Changes I've been thinking of...

[David Chisnall]

On 8 Oct 2009, at 18:22, Pablo Giménez wrote:

> Why Etoile and gnustep? I think that know etoile and gnustep should  
> be working together in the same project, so you guys can provide a  
> global computing environment, like Mac basically.


Étoilé and GNUstep have different goals.

The aim of GNUstep is to produce a first-rate set of modern, object- 
oriented, developer tools and APIs based around the OpenStep  
specification, tracking changes from Cocoa, and incorporating  
extensions where required.

The aim of Étoilé is to produce a modern user environment using a  
service- and document-driven model with ubiquitous persistence,  
versioning, and collaboration support, with ideas from THE and  
Smalltalk, as well as from OPENSTEP and various other places.

You can use GNUstep without using any of Étoilé.  You can use some  
bits of Étoilé without using GNUstep (although we haven't ported some  
of the best bits to OS X as they mostly rely on things that aren't  
present there).

Most of the Étoilé core team also have commit access to GNUstep.  When  
things make more sense in GNUstep, we try to make sure that they go  
there and when Étoilé code exposes bugs in GNUstep we try to fix them  
(or, in my case, moan to Fred about them, which generally has the same  
result).  When things are not part of GNUstep's more focussed goals,  
we put them in Étoilé.  Sometimes code flows from Étoilé to GNUstep,  
as GNUstep's goals broaden.

Not everybody who uses or contributes to GNUstep agrees with the  
directions Étoilé is taking, and there are projects like GAP and  
Backbone to produce more traditional, application-oriented, desktops.   
GNUstep's goals include supporting these developers too.

Choice is good when it doesn't lead to duplication of effort, and  
because Étoilé builds on top of GNUstep this duplication usually  
doesn't occur.

David

-- Sent from my Difference Engine