GNUstep project support

[Adam Fedor]

The GNUstep project is interested in receiving support from SPI. In
this mail, I want to discuss a little about GNUstep for those who are
not familiar with it as well as what we would like from SPI.

GNUstep originally started out as an implementation of the OpenStep
specification from NeXT, inc. (Now Apple, Inc.). OpenStep is a
high-quality object-oriented development environment. We've also
implemented other useful parts of a developer environment, including a
graphical interface builder and project management application, as
well as additions to the specifications such as are in the Cocoa (Mac
OS X) API. Many user applications, such as GNUMail, GWorkspace, and
Cenon have been written as well. The well thought-out design of the
framework, as well as it's coupling with Objective-C, means that the
framework has not changed substantially in over 10 years, yet it still
runs some of the most advanced applications in existence today on many
platforms (Mac OS X, Windows, GNU/Linux, BSD systems, Solaris, etc).

While GNUstep is a fairly large project, with 10-20 active developers
and perhaps hundreds or more individuals and corporations that use
GNUstep, it is not large enough to attract all the help we need. Yet
our needs are growing each day. Our proposed solution is to begin
accepting donations so that we can pay for some of the things that we
can't get people to give us.  Current ideas include a new icon set, a
server-farm for testing and packaging, and better documentation.

We would like SPI to handle the acceptance and disbursement of
donations.  Disbursement of donations would be made at the request of
the GNUstep maintainer (me) or possibly in the future, some GNUstep
development committee.

Full discloser:

Although GNUstep is a clean and independent implementation of OpenStep
and Cocoa APIs, there is a possibility that Apple, Inc., could sue us
or demand cease and desist of our work. However, they seem to be more
interested in works that copy their 'Aqua' look and other
look-and-feel aspects or their system. Also, in more than 10 years of
GNUstep's existence, they have not approached us at all about this
issue. As well, since the FSF handles our copyright, presumably they
would be responsible for handling these issues, not SPI.

If you have any other questions, please contact me, or see
www.gnustep.org for more information. Thanks.