Hi everyone,
I've always thought that it would be good to try to port macOS
applications to GNUstep, for a few reasons:
* It shows that GNUstep is complete enough to port real applications
* It helps show us in which areas we are weak or strong at
* It could potentially get us new users, especially for users who are
migrating from macOS to GNU/Linux or who use multiple operating
systems regularly
The current wishlist on the wiki does not really have many good ideas
for existing applications to port, so I looked for some high-quality
Objective-C + AppKit applications that might be interesting (see the
wishlist below). I'd like to hear your thoughts.
So far, I think that iTerm2 would probably be one of the most complex
things to do, but it would probably be quite popular. TextMate was
formerly extremely popular, but is not as popular anymore as the v2
rewrite took much longer than expected. SubEthaEdit is quite innovative,
but was quickly overtaken in popularity by TextMate.
Thanks,
Ethan
Wishlist of porting Mac apps
This is mostly open-source Mac applications written in AppKit and
Objective-C, which are either currently popular or were popular in the
2000s and 2010s.
I did not include any Swift applications; we can evaluate that once we
have a working Swift compiler with Objective-C bridging.
Other lists to look at
* https://github.com/jaywcjlove/awesome-swift-macos-apps
* https://github.com/serhii-londar/open-source-mac-os-apps
I also asked ChatGPT for various historical applications, which I then
reviewed myself to find some more detailed information and get rid of
extraneous information.
Objective-C + AppKit
Terminals
* iTerm2 <https://iterm2.com/> (GitLab
<https://gitlab.com/gnachman/iterm2>; GitHub mirror
<https://github.com/gnachman/iTerm2>; GPL-2.0) -- extremely popular
terminal emulator
o There are dozens of discussions on Hacker News
<https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=iterm2&sort=byPopularity&type=story>
if you want to see users' opinions
+ Many users claim there are useful features not found in any
GNU/Linux terminal emulator
o Older versions
+ 3.6.0 (2025-09-15) -- last version to support 10.15 Catalina
+ 3.0.15 (2017-03-25) -- last version to support 10.8 Mountain
Lion
+ Very old versions support 10.5 and 10.7
o Possibly difficult parts
+ It currently includes a decent amount of Swift code;
requires macOS 12.4
+ AppleScript
+ Built-in web browser
Editors
* TextMate <https://macromates.com/> (GitHub
<https://github.com/textmate/textmate>; GPL-3.0-or-later) --
formerly extremely popular text editor
o Requires 10.12 Sierra or later
o Unmaintained since 2021
* SubEthaEdit <https://subethaedit.net/> (GitHub
<https://github.com/subethaedit/SubEthaEdit>; MIT license) --
real-time collaborative editor
o Requires 10.13 High Sierra or later
o Unmaintained since 2022
PDF documents and LaTeX
* Skim <https://skim-app.sourceforge.io/> (SVN
<https://svn.code.sf.net/p/skim-app/code/trunk/>; BSD-3-Clause) --
PDF reader and annotator
o Does not seem to include Swift code
o Development started in April 2007
o Popular for reading/annotating scientific papers
o PreSkim <https://github.com/scris/preskim> -- fork with Big Sur
user interface
* BibDesk <https://bibdesk.sourceforge.io/> (SVN
<https://sourceforge.net/p/bibdesk/svn/HEAD/tree/>) -- BibTeX
bibliography editor
o Development started in 2002
o Does not seem to include Swift code
o Possibly difficult parts
+ AppleScript
+ Built-in web browser for viewing Google Scholar
* TeXshop <https://pages.uoregon.edu/koch/texshop/> (GitHub mirror
<https://github.com/TeXShop/TeXShop>) -- LaTeX editor
o Development started in 2000
o Does not seem to include Swift code
Media and graphics
* Vienna RSS <https://www.vienna-rss.com/> (GitHub
<https://github.com/ViennaRSS/vienna-rss>; Apache-2.0) -- RSS reader
o Possible difficulties
+ Requires WebKit
* Cog <https://cog.losno.co/> (GitHub
<https://github.com/losnoco/cog>; GPL-2.0) -- Music player
* Seashore (GitHub) <https://github.com/robaho/seashore> (GPL-2.0) --
Simple image editor
o More details
<https://librearts.org/2019/01/meet-seashore-free-image-editor-for-macos/>
o Although originally based on GIMP, most GIMP code has been removed
o Discussion on Hacker News
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31051991>
o Possible difficulties
+ Heavy use of CoreGraphics and CoreAnimation
Applications where we might be able to convince the author to
release the code
* Pineapple News <https://www.platinumball.net/pineapple/news/macosx/>
-- Usenet newsreader
o "This version is totally free, and will not expire. I still use
it myself quite a lot, but active development has ceased. If
anybody has a burning desire to take over maintenance of the
program, send me an e-mail."
o I don't think enough people use Usenet for this to be worthwhile
if it takes a lot of effort, but given its age it might be easy
to port
* MailMate <https://freron.com/> -- Email client
o It's a very powerful client with low resource usage
o Although it is commercial software, all of the features are
available in the free version
o This is certainly less likely that we could convince the author
to release the code, but it is more likely than many other
applications
