7 ms·

I go back and forth on whether this would truly be useful. 10-15 years ago, having a fully baked, first class, slavishly source compatible implementation of GNU

I go back and forth on whether this would truly be useful. 10-15 years ago, having a fully baked, first class, slavishly source compatible implementation of GNUstep with broad adoption throughout Linux land would have likely been a game changer. But now, it seems webified apps are king. The handful of native apps that people use are already satisfactorily implementable on Linux. In fact, a great number of native apps are being implemented on Linux in spite of the GUI bits not being source compatible with OS X or Windows. The major holdouts (MS Office, Adobe CS) likely have more to do with business reasons that factor much more than porting costs. Now, if GNUstep were to become a compelling alternative to XCode for developing iOS apps, I could absolutely see that tide lifting the Linux fleet.

api 10y ago
I wrote a blog post once about how the web is the new presentation layer for the desktop, that this is not necessarily a bad thing, and that a desktop OS (e.g. a Linux distro) should just fully embrace it by implementing a desktop that runs 100% via web technologies. Local and remote web apps could coexist as first class citizens, etc. I basically argued that HTML+JS+CSS renderers are the new X and that HTTP(S) is the new X11 protocol-- or at least that these parts occupy an analogous position in the stack to what X originally was. (They are technically quite different of course.) The web is the OSS GUI stack with the largest, most diverse, and most active developer community, and with it you get to ride on the coattails of multi-billion dollar companies like Facebook and Google that have significant investments in the web. I got DDOSed and threatened. I got some of the most insane all-caps slobbering and frothing at the mouth feedback I have ever seen in all my years of interacting with any developer community. You'd think I went into a conservative church and gave a talk about evidence for abortion in the Bible or something. The vast majority of this came after the article got posted to Reddit /r/linux. Most comments there amounted to "web sucks and JS coders are weenies and next year will be the year of the Linux desktop as soon as we finish the next rewrite of (insert favorite project)." Intelligent criticism is good but the vast majority of the comments I read responded to none of the core points of my post and amounted to not much more than developer community religious bias. I ended up taking the post down for two reasons: (1) I got sick of getting DDOSed and it wasn't worth it to me to fight just to get an off the cuff opinion out there. I am not deeply invested in this and have better things to do. (2) This convinced me that the "desktop Linux" community is toxic in the extreme and should be avoided. This includes avoiding providing any input whatsoever to that community. Also caused me to become a lot less loyal to Linux in general, since it's a community full of people who respond to any opinion differing from their own with absurd amounts of hate and vitriol.
- witty_username 10y ago
  Why do you need a desktop running 100% via web technologies? What's the advantage of that? BTW, IIRC KDE uses JS for some Qt stuff and GTK uses CSS for themes. How is HTTPS even close to X11 protocol? That's like saying a car engine can function as a steering wheel. BTW /r/linux is not all Linux users.
  - api 10y ago
    The advantage is long-term at the level of the ecosystem. You can leverage the world's largest developer pool and ride the coattails of major corporations. Qt, GTK, and other desktop techs are "weird" little tiny niche skills to acquire, and since desktop dev in general is lower priority these days they're going to be rare. HTML5+CSS+JS with a stack based on React or Ember will draw tons of dev talent. For consistent look and feel the environment could standardize on a single set of CSS themes (maybe a fork of bootstrap) and a "recommended" UI toolkit (I'd recommend React). Use of other CSS or other UI toolkits is okay, but if you do you're strongly recommended to hold to the style guidelines. Those style guidelines could in turn be informed by things like Atom, Visual Studio Code, Slack's desktop app, etc.
    - nitrogen 10y ago
      I don't understand all the downvotes for all of your comments. I have developed GUIs in Gtk, Qt, .Net, and Java+Swing, but I saw the writing on the wall and learned web dev. I really really hate writing GUIs in HTML (inferior tools, inferior performance), but that is where the wind is blowing.
      - pjmlp 10y ago
        There is plenty of money to be made in native GUIs, one just needs to search for the right customers. I have been developing green field native applications in the last three years. It has been a return to sanity after doing around 4 years web dev.
        10y ago
zeveb 10y ago
> 10-15 years ago, having a fully baked, first class, slavishly source compatible implementation of GNUstep with broad adoption throughout Linux land would have likely been a game changer. I think that GNUstep has actually been around since the mid- or late-90s — but it was never a game changer. I don't know why really (was it 'fully-baked' and 'first-class'?), although for my part I just never found a reason to use it.
- eloisant 10y ago
  I don't think it ever reached the level of maturity of GTK/Gnome and Qt/KDE at the time. If it did, the GNUstep desktop could have gained users (WindowMaker was very popular, me included) and developers would have got interest in it. That didn't happen.

api 10y ago

I wrote a blog post once about how the web is the new presentation layer for the desktop, that this is not necessarily a bad thing, and that a desktop OS (e.g. a Linux distro) should just fully embrace it by implementing a desktop that runs 100% via web technologies. Local and remote web apps could coexist as first class citizens, etc. I basically argued that HTML+JS+CSS renderers are the new X and that HTTP(S) is the new X11 protocol-- or at least that these parts occupy an analogous position in the stack to what X originally was. (They are technically quite different of course.) The web is the OSS GUI stack with the largest, most diverse, and most active developer community, and with it you get to ride on the coattails of multi-billion dollar companies like Facebook and Google that have significant investments in the web. I got DDOSed and threatened. I got some of the most insane all-caps slobbering and frothing at the mouth feedback I have ever seen in all my years of interacting with any developer community. You'd think I went into a conservative church and gave a talk about evidence for abortion in the Bible or something. The vast majority of this came after the article got posted to Reddit /r/linux. Most comments there amounted to "web sucks and JS coders are weenies and next year will be the year of the Linux desktop as soon as we finish the next rewrite of (insert favorite project)." Intelligent criticism is good but the vast majority of the comments I read responded to none of the core points of my post and amounted to not much more than developer community religious bias. I ended up taking the post down for two reasons: (1) I got sick of getting DDOSed and it wasn't worth it to me to fight just to get an off the cuff opinion out there. I am not deeply invested in this and have better things to do. (2) This convinced me that the "desktop Linux" community is toxic in the extreme and should be avoided. This includes avoiding providing any input whatsoever to that community. Also caused me to become a lot less loyal to Linux in general, since it's a community full of people who respond to any opinion differing from their own with absurd amounts of hate and vitriol.

witty_username 10y ago
Why do you need a desktop running 100% via web technologies? What's the advantage of that? BTW, IIRC KDE uses JS for some Qt stuff and GTK uses CSS for themes. How is HTTPS even close to X11 protocol? That's like saying a car engine can function as a steering wheel. BTW /r/linux is not all Linux users.
- api 10y ago
  The advantage is long-term at the level of the ecosystem. You can leverage the world's largest developer pool and ride the coattails of major corporations. Qt, GTK, and other desktop techs are "weird" little tiny niche skills to acquire, and since desktop dev in general is lower priority these days they're going to be rare. HTML5+CSS+JS with a stack based on React or Ember will draw tons of dev talent. For consistent look and feel the environment could standardize on a single set of CSS themes (maybe a fork of bootstrap) and a "recommended" UI toolkit (I'd recommend React). Use of other CSS or other UI toolkits is okay, but if you do you're strongly recommended to hold to the style guidelines. Those style guidelines could in turn be informed by things like Atom, Visual Studio Code, Slack's desktop app, etc.
  - nitrogen 10y ago
    I don't understand all the downvotes for all of your comments. I have developed GUIs in Gtk, Qt, .Net, and Java+Swing, but I saw the writing on the wall and learned web dev. I really really hate writing GUIs in HTML (inferior tools, inferior performance), but that is where the wind is blowing.
    - pjmlp 10y ago
      There is plenty of money to be made in native GUIs, one just needs to search for the right customers. I have been developing green field native applications in the last three years. It has been a return to sanity after doing around 4 years web dev.
      - 10y ago

zeveb 10y ago

> 10-15 years ago, having a fully baked, first class, slavishly source compatible implementation of GNUstep with broad adoption throughout Linux land would have likely been a game changer. I think that GNUstep has actually been around since the mid- or late-90s — but it was never a game changer. I don't know why really (was it 'fully-baked' and 'first-class'?), although for my part I just never found a reason to use it.

eloisant 10y ago
I don't think it ever reached the level of maturity of GTK/Gnome and Qt/KDE at the time. If it did, the GNUstep desktop could have gained users (WindowMaker was very popular, me included) and developers would have got interest in it. That didn't happen.