The NeXT-Best Thing: GNUSTEP 0.9.4 Live CD

roard writes "Following the NeXT tradition with mixed case, GNUSTEP is a live CD/distribution while GNUstep is an implementation of the OpenStep API. GNUSTEP is based on Morphix, and uses the GNUstep libraries and GNUstep-based applications to provide a NeXTSTEP-like environment that people can easily test and use. This new 0.9.4 release comes 8 months since the precedent 0.5 release, and brings a lot of new GNUstep applications with it, as well as an upgrade of the GNUstep libraries and the development tools. In other news, a small demonstration of GNUstep development tools is available in Flash or divx. The old dream of having a GNU OS with Hurd and an OpenStep implementation doesn't seems that far now ;)"

Comments

Re:Plus it isn't open source.

[Leo McGarry]

Can you name a major OS that has not been in a legal battle over some sort of IP dispute?

Mac OS X, as far as I know. That's just the first one that springs to mind because it's the one I'm using right now. I'm not aware of any copyright claims made against Apple over the source code to Mac OS X.

(This may be simple ignorance on my part.)

The point is not whether Linux has withstood claims made against it. The point is that there are a number of serious claims right now. For this reason, Linux is a legal hot potato at the moment, and nobody wants to touch it. If these claims are resolved, okay... but there's still the indemnity issue to deal with. So even if the cases disappear tomorrow, Linux is not free and clear from a legal perspective.

Re:Hurd?

[Cthefuture]

Objective-C sucks. Sorry but run-time binding and dereferencing everything gives you something much slower than it could be. Virtual functions are not your friend. RTTI is not your friend.

That's one of the reasons OS X has to sit there for ages "optimizing" your system after you install anything. It is running the pre-linker on everything. Otherwise your system runs like shit, like the first original OS X release which didn't do any pre-linking. Something they would not have to do if they did not use so much run-time crap. This issue is caused by a combination of Objective-C, poor use of C++, and poor design. You can go too far with OOP. I mean, how much common software do you see written in SmallTalk?

Proper software strikes a balance between disciplines. Imperative, object oriented, functional, they all have their uses. It is a mistake to go all the way in one direction.