I've not dug deeper than reading the page and looking at the screenshots, but it looks like he’s making some sane default choices such as to use WindowMaker for the dock rather than GWorkspace’s dock. And it appears he's working to put more and more into the Prefs app (rather than, for example, configuring WindowMaker through WindowMaker’s preference manager app).

GNUStep already has quite a lot there for making a desktop. What it’s lacking is the implementation of the desktop. This, on the surface, appears to be an attempt to round that out.

I'm not sure using WindowMaker is sane at all.

WindowMaker is a completely isolated C implementation with its own GUI toolkit. It's not integrated at all with the rest of GNUStep. It only appears NeXT-like, it's a facade.

GNUStep should ulimately replace it, if this is to be some kind of NeXTSTEP replica beyond skin-deep appearances.

Workspace is a new application that contains WindowMaker. And it _is_ fully integrated with GNUstep applications. This is not a facade, this is how OPENSTEP feels. Just give it a try.

That’s fair. He at least appears to have created a configuration app that is a integrated with prefs, which makes the alienness of WindowMaker less exposed.

On the other hand the dock in GWorkspace is pretty non-functional by comparison.

Isn't GNUStep dead, stuck in some level of Panther compatibility?