GNUstep Objective-C Runtime 1.6 Released

[phoronix]

Phoronix: GNUstep Objective-C Runtime 1.6 Released

GNUstep, the leading free software implementation of Apple's Cocoa Objective-C libraries and related Mac OS X components, has reached a new version. GNUstep runtime 1.6 is this new version with many new features after being in development for more than one year...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTAyMDE

[devius]

I don't understand GNUstep, even after going to the project's homepage and reading a bit I don't understand it. Are there any applications right now that are using it? And I mean real applications that are actually used by someone else besides the developer, not some proof of concept application done over a weekend to try it out. I saw a small list of applications on the project's site but they all look like they came out of a 1989 Unix computer. Is it by design that they all look like crap? Can GNUStep be used to easily port actual Mac OS applications to other OSes or would those applications have to be rewritten from scratch for that?

[TechMage89]

GNUStep is basically an open-source implementation of the OPENSTEP specification. Since OSX's APIs are also based on that, there is a fair amount of overlap, which I gather the project is trying to increase.

As far as "looking like they came out of a 1989 Unix computer" you need to understand that the NeXT-like aesthetic they're using is pretty different from what you see in most computers today.

In terms of applications built on it, there's a desktop environment here: http://etoileos.com/ that looks pretty interesting. I've been meaning to try it out, but haven't really found the time to build it and get it to work (since Arch doesn't have a package for it).

And yes, it should in theory make porting OSX applications easier (since all the basic APIs are pretty much the same), but a lot of OSX applications use more extensive features of the OS that aren't included in GNUStep.

[cb88]

check out Etoile... its written on top of GNUstep and thats where thise most recent obj-c improvement was developed

And yes it really is pretty much developer only as none of it seems to have left alpha on the etoile side... which is a desktop unlike GNUStep

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89toil%C3%A9

They don't have a current stable release as 4.1 is way out of date and 4.2 is imcompatible with that apparently

[accumulator]

SOGo groupware server is using GNUStep..

[zoomblab]

There are 3 Objective-C runtimes.

1. Apple
2. GCC
3. GnuStep

All open source. The GCC one is GNU, supports ObjC 2 and comes with the compiler. Strangely the GNUstep one is not GNU licensed!

[wizard69]

Think of it as an old version of NextStep.

I don't understand GNUstep, even after going to the project's homepage and reading a bit I don't understand it.

I will likely repeat this but it is an old version of NextStep more or less.

Are there any applications right now that are using it?

Certainly but I don't think any of them are finished. Not that software is ever finished, but there doesn't seem to be a ground swell of support for GNUStep.

And I mean real applications that are actually used by someone else besides the developer, not some proof of concept application done over a weekend to try it out. I saw a small list of applications on the project's site but they all look like they came out of a 1989 Unix computer.

Again an old version of NextStep.

Mind you some of us actually find that look more pleasing than KDE for example.

Is it by design that they all look like crap?

Again an old version of NextStep.

Well that and programmers with no sense of design. Look at Mac OS apps to see a real effort in making NextStep apps look good.

Can GNUStep be used to easily port actual Mac OS applications to other OSes or would those applications have to be rewritten from scratch for that?

Well yes it can. But, there is always a but, Apple has really moved forward since releasing the code to the public. You may be able to get a very large portion of the code base to be cross platform though.

GNUStep has always interested me due to my dual interest in both the Mac and Linux. Due to the use of Objective C I would suspect we would be better off with GNUStep than what we get with GNome. Conversely it would likely have to struggle against QT but I tend to hate the look of KDE. In the end what GNUStep needs is a stronger developer base to bring the interface up to modern standards.