Congratulations on the new release. Is there an up-to-date list of the features that GNUstep needs and lacks? I would like to see it.
This depends on who you ask, as the project includes many people who wish to do different things.
Some folks want to have an development environment that reminds them of NeXTstep that also works on older hardware, others wish to have some level of source compatibility with modern versions of MacOS and Apple's technologies. Others still wish to create a desktop.
What we have today is libraries and tools that are largely compatible with parts of NeXTstep/OpenStep/Cocoa, with compatibility and completion increasing with the age of the particular API.
That said, I will share what my current work in GNUstep-land is, and where I am going; others will have other goals that may or may not intersect.
I am currently working on an inventory of a) which APIs exist, and b) how faithfully and completely we implement them, to be able to better understand where we are today. I'll be publishing the work on this as soon as it's useful.
My first goal for GNUstep is to make it compatible with a version (undecided which version) of MacOS, so that we can have software that is written first on MacOS that can build cleanly with GNUstep and used on free software platforms. It is my belief that when we have a certain level of compatibility, we will provide an "off-ramp" for current users of macOS to be able to port their applications and reach a wider audience, and hopefully become users and contributors to GNUstep.
Some of the APIs that we will need to support (CoreGraphics, CoreAnimation, CoreAudio) are very large and complicated, so this work is immense. A lot of the others (MapKit, EventKit, and others for example) are smaller and much more easily attainable.
The end goal (for me, others have other goals) is that folks will be able to run a complete GNUstep desktop, which will be a familiar landing place for those coming from Apple's ecosystem. It's a lofty goal, but Apple certainly gets a lot of things very right about usability and metaphor, that I think are important and valuable.
As I said, others have other goals, but these are the ones I'm currently pushing forward on. I am happy to discuss in more detail.
-Steven
