lykwydchykyn
July 25th, 2009, 05:15 AM
WindowMaker is a window manager that tries to emulate the NeXTStep interface. NeXTStep, of course, was the 1990's ancestor of OSX.
GNUstep is a free implementation of the OpenStep a.k.a. Cocoa API commonly used for software development on OSX
Now, I am not an experienced Mac user, nor do I particularly have a jonesing to have my Linux box look like OSX. But I have been checking out WindowMaker and GNUstep recently and it makes me curious of a few things:
- What do experienced Mac users think about WindowMaker? Obviously, it looks pretty retro; but as far as usability and workflow go, does it compare to OS X? Is it reminiscent in any way, or is it just too far removed in time?
- With all the interest in making Linux look or behave like OS X (q.v. mac4lin, awn/cairo-dock, baghira/bespin, etc), I wonder why these projects seem to be very slow (if not downright dead). Seems like some interested hackers could give WindowMaker a modern look and have something very intriguing at least, if not actually OS X-like.
- If we had a complete implementation of Cocoa, what else would need to be done to make OS X programs source-compatible with Linux? Would this possibly be a faster route for commercial software to be ported to Linux than reimplementing with GTK or QT (or using Wine, a la Picassa for Linux)?
Anyway, I don't really have a strong opinion here, just thinking out loud. Nice discussion for the weekend, if anyone has any thoughts on it...
GNUstep is a free implementation of the OpenStep a.k.a. Cocoa API commonly used for software development on OSX
Now, I am not an experienced Mac user, nor do I particularly have a jonesing to have my Linux box look like OSX. But I have been checking out WindowMaker and GNUstep recently and it makes me curious of a few things:
- What do experienced Mac users think about WindowMaker? Obviously, it looks pretty retro; but as far as usability and workflow go, does it compare to OS X? Is it reminiscent in any way, or is it just too far removed in time?
- With all the interest in making Linux look or behave like OS X (q.v. mac4lin, awn/cairo-dock, baghira/bespin, etc), I wonder why these projects seem to be very slow (if not downright dead). Seems like some interested hackers could give WindowMaker a modern look and have something very intriguing at least, if not actually OS X-like.
- If we had a complete implementation of Cocoa, what else would need to be done to make OS X programs source-compatible with Linux? Would this possibly be a faster route for commercial software to be ported to Linux than reimplementing with GTK or QT (or using Wine, a la Picassa for Linux)?
Anyway, I don't really have a strong opinion here, just thinking out loud. Nice discussion for the weekend, if anyone has any thoughts on it...