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What would be amazing is if Darling could join forces with the long-running GNUstep project in order to provide access to the Cocoa APIs. This would provide a

What would be amazing is if Darling could join forces with the long-running GNUstep project in order to provide access to the Cocoa APIs. This would provide a means to run Cocoa apps on Linux, which will make Linux a more attractive operating system for prospective Mac converts and may also increase the popularity of GNUstep. Also, with many Mac users expressing anxieties about the future of the Mac given Apple's business decisions under Tim Cook, a combination of Darling and GNUstep would provide Mac users an option to still use the apps they have invested in, just in case Apple neglects the Mac or makes radical decisions that would negatively impact Mac users. However, the last time I looked into this matter, GNUstep still has quite a way to catch up to macOS Mojave's version of Cocoa. At the risk of going off topic, I still don't understand why GNUstep never seemed to have reached critical mass despite all these years of development. I was just a kid during the mid-1990s, but KDE and GNOME took off around this time while GNUstep kept pressing on. Here's my thoughts: maybe in 1995 and 1996 the OpenStep API might not have been attractive to developers in a world where Windows completely dominated the desktop, but this doesn't explain the decision of the KDE developers to use Qt instead of GNUstep (as well as the decision of the GNOME developers to use GTK+). There may have also been much uncertainty in 1997 following Apple's purchase of NeXT about the future of OpenStep. Such anxieties would be alleviated sometime during 2001-2003 when Mac OS X was released and started gaining popularity, but by then KDE and GNOME (and their respective underlying GUI toolkits) were firmly established in the Linux desktop ecosystem, and to this day they remain the dominant Linux desktops, and many less popular desktops still rely on Qt or GTK.

saagarjha 8y ago
Has anyone tried building libobjc on Darling? I feel like that is probably something that they'd need to do first. Edit: It looks like they already have Foundation working.
scroot 8y ago
Every year or so I take a look at GNUStep just to see what's going on. Crazy it hasn't taken off.
- solarkraft 8y ago
  Unfortunately - call me superficial - I can't really get past its crusty look.
  - zapzupnz 8y ago
    I'm with you on that, and it seems to be symptomatic of the project's refusal to step away from the legacy of mimicking OPENSTEP. They've made 1995 look like a goal towards which to aspire. They've added theming support to GNUSTEP, but that's really lipstick on a pig. Then again, I can't blame them too much, the project is mostly quiet and doesn't attract as much attention as the other popular Linux toolkits.
    - mycall 8y ago
      With material design and fluent design, OPENSTEP is fossilizing.
      - zapzupnz 8y ago
        GNUSTEP, you mean. OPENSTEP is the fossil GNUSTEP wants to be. In fairness, they've made strides since then. The Foundation library seems to be aiming for compatibility with a macOS release from several years ago, at least still more recent than the early-to-mid 90s.
sjwright 8y ago
The problem with replacing MacOS is that its key value lies in aspects that the open source community have yet to succeed in, or are structurally unfit to succeed in.[0][1] — System-wide UI consistency, especially in the fine details — Singular UI/UX vision eliminates points of confusion and everything-is-a-compromise choices for third party developers — Navigable by non-experts, even when things turn to shit — Nominally "perfect" hardware support — Robust colorimetry — Millisecond audio latency I use Linux extensively, but I'm not aching to leave macOS as my primary platform. Yes, they did start to go a bit loopy and off-track around Mac OS X 10.7–10.9, but from my vantage point it has been all uphill again since Mavericks. The idea of running Mac apps in a Wine-like compatibility layer sounds worse than anything Apple could ever do to macOS. Yes, I like free. And yes, I like personal choice. But I value my time and I'm sorry to proponents of other platforms, but macOS just values my time more than any other platform. ________ [0] The achilles heel of the open source community stems from the lack of a unifying vision and a top-down approach. This has major advantages as well as major disadvantages. But nonetheless it affects the result. And depending on your priorities, the advantages might outweigh the disadvantages or vice versa. [1] And to be fair it's equally true in the opposite direction. Open source succeeds in many aspects like robustness, hardware compatibility, longevity and transparency/deep trust. Hence why it has utterly destroyed the server market. These areas of success are not accidental or arbitrary.
- netheril96 8y ago
  — Internationalization
  - sjwright 8y ago
    — Accessibility (deaf, blind etc)
- microcolonel 8y ago
  > — System-wide UI consistency, especially in the fine details > — Singular UI/UX vision eliminates points of confusion and everything-is-a-compromise choices for third party developers I mean, first-party GNOME applications are as consistent as first-party Apple macOS applications; and third-party macOS applications are as highly customized as third-party applications one might run on GNOME. Not sure what you base your experience on but this is not really any more of an issue for those looking for consistency over all else. > — Properly accessible by non-experts, even when things turn to shit I'd like an example, not really sure what you're talking about here. In my experience, when things go wrong on macOS, you're prettymuch SOL until the broken feature is either fixed, reimplemented, or removed in a subsequent major release of the operating system. In my experience, Apple doesn't respond to bug reports any more than other desktop OS vendors, including open source ones. > — Nominally "perfect" hardware support The graphics drivers on macOS are very poor. Apple's decision to neglect and then subsequently abandon OpenGL is pure laziness, and their implementation was already bad when they were still maintaining it. Furthermore, hardware compatibility with random gizmos on macOS leaves a lot to be desired in comparison to Linux, in my experience, though I guess your mileage may vary. > — Robust colorimetry colord works just fine for me, no amount of software is going to profile your monitors for you though. > — Millisecond audio latency I'm pretty sure CoreAudio frames are not less than 44 samples. What I will give Apple credit for is a great set of graphics manipulation libraries which make it simple to use high quality scaling and manipulation algorithms, and making sure it's a conscious choice to use cheaper, faster ones, and their implementation of seamless suspend-to-disk with full disk encryption is admirable (though honestly, dispensable at the end of the day). Their shaping and font rendering libraries are almost as good as Harfbuzz and FreeType 2 (though I think they've just started using FreeType at least on some platforms). Accessibility features are also pretty good, and depending on what disability you have, it's a tossup between GNOME and macOS.
Mediterraneo10 8y ago
> At the risk of going off topic, I still don't understand why GNUstep never seemed to have reached critical mass despite all these years of development. As someone who was part of the GNUstep scene and contributed a tiny bit of code, I think the reason is obvious: GNOME was getting the big corporate investment, and KDE also had a stable foundation somehow. As you say, the "Linux desktop" very quickly came down to a GNOME/KDE duoply. Plus, GNUstep was written in Objective-C which was outside of a lot of devs' comfort zone at that time. So, GNUstep only managed to attract a few passionate hobbyists but no more.
- sjwright 8y ago
  I think it was even simpler than that: during the inflection point between GNUstep and Gnome/KDE, the mainstream market was dominated by Windows. It was clear that the open source community saw Windows as the yardstick for a successful Linux desktop. Whereas GNUstep was associated with an utterly failed platform. But subsequent to the NeXT buyout and as MacOS increasingly proved its geek credentials, you can see how the community yardstick has progressively shifted in its direction. Had the serious push for a Linux desktop begun ten years ago and not 25 years ago, GNUstep might well have been the victor.

saagarjha 8y ago

Has anyone tried building libobjc on Darling? I feel like that is probably something that they'd need to do first. Edit: It looks like they already have Foundation working.

scroot 8y ago

Every year or so I take a look at GNUStep just to see what's going on. Crazy it hasn't taken off.

solarkraft 8y ago
Unfortunately - call me superficial - I can't really get past its crusty look.
- zapzupnz 8y ago
  I'm with you on that, and it seems to be symptomatic of the project's refusal to step away from the legacy of mimicking OPENSTEP. They've made 1995 look like a goal towards which to aspire. They've added theming support to GNUSTEP, but that's really lipstick on a pig. Then again, I can't blame them too much, the project is mostly quiet and doesn't attract as much attention as the other popular Linux toolkits.
  - mycall 8y ago
    With material design and fluent design, OPENSTEP is fossilizing.
    - zapzupnz 8y ago
      GNUSTEP, you mean. OPENSTEP is the fossil GNUSTEP wants to be. In fairness, they've made strides since then. The Foundation library seems to be aiming for compatibility with a macOS release from several years ago, at least still more recent than the early-to-mid 90s.

sjwright 8y ago

The problem with replacing MacOS is that its key value lies in aspects that the open source community have yet to succeed in, or are structurally unfit to succeed in.[0][1] — System-wide UI consistency, especially in the fine details — Singular UI/UX vision eliminates points of confusion and everything-is-a-compromise choices for third party developers — Navigable by non-experts, even when things turn to shit — Nominally "perfect" hardware support — Robust colorimetry — Millisecond audio latency I use Linux extensively, but I'm not aching to leave macOS as my primary platform. Yes, they did start to go a bit loopy and off-track around Mac OS X 10.7–10.9, but from my vantage point it has been all uphill again since Mavericks. The idea of running Mac apps in a Wine-like compatibility layer sounds worse than anything Apple could ever do to macOS. Yes, I like free. And yes, I like personal choice. But I value my time and I'm sorry to proponents of other platforms, but macOS just values my time more than any other platform. ________ [0] The achilles heel of the open source community stems from the lack of a unifying vision and a top-down approach. This has major advantages as well as major disadvantages. But nonetheless it affects the result. And depending on your priorities, the advantages might outweigh the disadvantages or vice versa. [1] And to be fair it's equally true in the opposite direction. Open source succeeds in many aspects like robustness, hardware compatibility, longevity and transparency/deep trust. Hence why it has utterly destroyed the server market. These areas of success are not accidental or arbitrary.

netheril96 8y ago
— Internationalization
- sjwright 8y ago
  — Accessibility (deaf, blind etc)
microcolonel 8y ago
> — System-wide UI consistency, especially in the fine details > — Singular UI/UX vision eliminates points of confusion and everything-is-a-compromise choices for third party developers I mean, first-party GNOME applications are as consistent as first-party Apple macOS applications; and third-party macOS applications are as highly customized as third-party applications one might run on GNOME. Not sure what you base your experience on but this is not really any more of an issue for those looking for consistency over all else. > — Properly accessible by non-experts, even when things turn to shit I'd like an example, not really sure what you're talking about here. In my experience, when things go wrong on macOS, you're prettymuch SOL until the broken feature is either fixed, reimplemented, or removed in a subsequent major release of the operating system. In my experience, Apple doesn't respond to bug reports any more than other desktop OS vendors, including open source ones. > — Nominally "perfect" hardware support The graphics drivers on macOS are very poor. Apple's decision to neglect and then subsequently abandon OpenGL is pure laziness, and their implementation was already bad when they were still maintaining it. Furthermore, hardware compatibility with random gizmos on macOS leaves a lot to be desired in comparison to Linux, in my experience, though I guess your mileage may vary. > — Robust colorimetry colord works just fine for me, no amount of software is going to profile your monitors for you though. > — Millisecond audio latency I'm pretty sure CoreAudio frames are not less than 44 samples. What I will give Apple credit for is a great set of graphics manipulation libraries which make it simple to use high quality scaling and manipulation algorithms, and making sure it's a conscious choice to use cheaper, faster ones, and their implementation of seamless suspend-to-disk with full disk encryption is admirable (though honestly, dispensable at the end of the day). Their shaping and font rendering libraries are almost as good as Harfbuzz and FreeType 2 (though I think they've just started using FreeType at least on some platforms). Accessibility features are also pretty good, and depending on what disability you have, it's a tossup between GNOME and macOS.

Mediterraneo10 8y ago

> At the risk of going off topic, I still don't understand why GNUstep never seemed to have reached critical mass despite all these years of development. As someone who was part of the GNUstep scene and contributed a tiny bit of code, I think the reason is obvious: GNOME was getting the big corporate investment, and KDE also had a stable foundation somehow. As you say, the "Linux desktop" very quickly came down to a GNOME/KDE duoply. Plus, GNUstep was written in Objective-C which was outside of a lot of devs' comfort zone at that time. So, GNUstep only managed to attract a few passionate hobbyists but no more.

sjwright 8y ago
I think it was even simpler than that: during the inflection point between GNUstep and Gnome/KDE, the mainstream market was dominated by Windows. It was clear that the open source community saw Windows as the yardstick for a successful Linux desktop. Whereas GNUstep was associated with an utterly failed platform. But subsequent to the NeXT buyout and as MacOS increasingly proved its geek credentials, you can see how the community yardstick has progressively shifted in its direction. Had the serious push for a Linux desktop begun ten years ago and not 25 years ago, GNUstep might well have been the victor.