Re:Nextspace – NeXTSTEP-like desktop environment for Linux
by trunkmaster on Monday September 17, 2018 @05:35PM
(#18010303)
Let me clarify some things a bit. GNUstep is a libraries and set of tools for development: Makefile environment (gnustep-make), Gorm (Interface Builder) and ProjectCenter (Project Builder). NEXTSPACE's Workspace was written from scratch and has no any connection to GWorkspace. Workspace and WindowMaker is one application (binary) - it is not "repackaged GNUstep and WindowMaker". Patches for WindowMaker was a quite challenging part of Workspace development process. WindowMaker injected into Workspace minimally uses WINGs.
GNUstep's core libraries and build tools are behind Nextspace and Etoile, as well as the GWorkspace environment and the build ecosystem itself; Gorm and Project Center. Gorm is more or less equivalent to NeXT's Interface Builder and Project Center taking on the role of Project Builder (now known as Xcode).
GNUstep is still the foundation and still has parallels with Openstep and Cocoa. Interface consistency is derived from applications using those libraries and components (object relationships, services).
WindowMaker itself uses the WINGs (Wings is not GNUstep) library, which is not really used outside of wmaker and dock apps for it. AppKit and WINGs don't interoperate, which makes the choice of using wmaker for Nextspace questionable when GWorkspace implements window management using PDFKit and other libs, like a GNUstep application should.
Personally, I can't see how this project is any different from GNUstep and WindowMaker apart from a few personal touches (profile.d and .bashrc configuration changes and the like).