I remember that some of these points were targeted by the Étoilé environment [1]. It was a desktop environment targeted for GNUstep and programmed in Objective-

I remember that some of these points were targeted by the Étoilé environment [1]. It was a desktop environment targeted for GNUstep and programmed in Objective-C that tried to rethink a few fundamental concepts of the Desktop Environments available at the time (~10 years ago). Among them, proper file versioning for everything, seamless app interoperability and data sharing, etc. Sadly, the developers never managed to go beyond a few core libraries and a nice theme (the GUI used GNUstep under the hood). I followed the development with great interest till they stopped updating the site; I believe that the effort would have required many more developers. What a pity! [1] http://etoileos.com/ http://etoileos.com/