Apple and Independent Developers

Corleone writes "We've seen a realization recently that Microsoft isn't standing still with Longhorn, and countering Longhorn has been pushed to the forefront. That is why I found the concept of Apple being the larger danger in Rhapsody in Yellow so ironic. The author skirts the scary question: would Apple porting their frameworks to Linux give them undue influence over the direction of the free operating system movement? This is after recent reports saying missing programs are the biggest thing holding Linux back on the desktop. Macromedia has interest in their tools on Linux, surely many others are too. This would seem to allow thousands of companies a simple path to the Linux market but with Apple as the gateway. If not Apple, what of Microsoft porting their engine?"

Comments

What about GNUstep?

[__aavhli5779]

I just perused the majority of that blog entry and...

No mention of GNUstep?

GNUstep is a complete reimplementation of the OPENSTEP (i. e. Cocoa) frameworks which works on GNU/Linux, BSD, and several other *NIX platforms... it already provides the portability necessary and an environment to develop apps against that framework for free.

What it's missing is a few crucial pieces which are slowly starting to fall together:

1) .NIB compatibility. Apple never released the specs for their NIB (NeXTStep Interface Builder) format in which Cocoa interfaces are saved. Thus GNUstep had to create their own (first .gmodel, and then .gorm), neither of which are compatible with Apple's, which requires developers to reimplement interface files on each platform (trust me, this is a royal pain in the ass). However, a framework called Renaissance, which builds on OS X and GNUstep and allows you to specify your interfaces in XML, is starting to take hold. All it lacks is a graphical interface builder, and word on the grapevine is that such a thing is coming soon.
2). $$$. GNUstep has no major corporate backer. Most of the people who work on it work on it because they love it. KDE, Gnome, and Mono all have the Novell monstrosity behind them. GNUstep has nothing.
3). Lack of distributed objects compatibility. See (1)
4). Outdated interface. The OPENSTEP look is, needless to say, passe. Apple did well redesigning their interface completely. GNUstep still looks like OPENSTEP did 10 years ago. This needs to change.

If Apple were to throw their weight behind GNUstep ( a tough decision, but an interesting one which could potentially bode well for both Apple and the free software community ) we could have the outcome the author asks for... Apple pushing a disruptive technology based on their own frameworks into free software, and taking hold of the market. Pipe dream? Maybe. But we can dream ;)

Re:What about GNUstep?

[Chucker23N]

Carbon, however, will never be deployed on other platforms. It's a horrible, messy kludge composed of about 15 years of Macintosh API evolution plus the necessary changes to make it work on OS X. There's nothing about it that's appealing from a "beginning to code for" standpoint... it's just there for transition.

Except for single applications like QuickTime Player for Windows and iTunes for Windows, which *do* essentially contain large chunks of Carbon.

Re:Apple

[CptChipJew]

With OS-X being basically BSD, Their wouldn't be much work to do so.

Actually, porting iTunes to Linux or BSD would be a horrific experience, as iTunes written in Carbon (Porting that to Linux would be a nightmare).

And OSS Web Objects to complete the picture.

[pschmied]

Gnustepweb is a framework that is supposedly compatible with WebObjects.

The parent post has a really, really good point. GNUStep has oh, so much potential and it's getting close to ready.

Like it or lump it, Apple has produced the most cohesive *nix environment out there. They've got support from the important corporate software vendors. Vendors want to port to Linux, but damn, the myriad gui toolkits and serious lack of complete frameworks is daunting for commercial entities.

I know choice is good, but is Cocoa/Aqua that unexpressive to code in? The proliferation of apps for the Mac would seem to point to the contrary. Why must we reinvent the boring stuff (i.e. toolkits and frameworks) over and over? Couldn't we just adopt a proven successful model, run with it, then tweak where needed?

I just built GNUStep from NetBSD's excellent cross-platform package management/build system, pkgsrc. GNUStep is pretty cool. It's like a slightly primative, somewhat ugly Mac. Other than that, it's very, very similar. It's clear people are starting to write useful apps with it. It's got a finder-like app called GWorkspace. It's got a pretty decent mail application that runs on both MacOS and GNUStep.

-Peter

Re:C'mon now...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm tired of hearing all you people whine about Quicktime. Quicktime is a wrapper, it supports many codecs. WHat you're refering to is the Sorenson codec Apple uses for their .Mov files, this is licensed technology. Which means Apple would have to pay for every *nix copy downloaded. I don't see this happening.

Besides, quicktime has a poor interface currently, and unless you go pro, is annoyance ware.