Re: Windows NT port of GTK+

[robert havoc pennington <rhpennin midway uchicago edu>]

On Thu, 30 Apr 1998, fractture wrote:
> > Already have this, in WxWindows, Qt, Java, and likely some others.
> 
> Wx is C++ only, Qt is NOT free ($1200 for the windows version), and Java
> sucks.
> 

I didn't say Qt was free. It does, however, work, and would be a
competitor with a Windows Gtk. Lots of people like C++ and Java, though
you may not. 

The main point is that all three of these things work today, and look
native on both platforms. You can also run Gtk apps today on an NT X
server.  In comparison, Gtk for Windows is a lot of labor for something
that won't work anytime soon.

> The native look in windows is kind of dumn.  Nothing has any ability to look
> different in any way.  I rather like this in X.  Besides, I think your wrong
> about people not wanting thier software to be portable.
> 

I'm sure they do want it to be portable. In fact, they are probably more
concerned about portability than C vs. C++/Java. That's why they aren't
going to use Gtk. 

Not that anyone's going to prevent a Gtk port to Windows. But if I had to
bet, I bet it will never get off the ground; if it does get off the
ground, I bet it will take a couple of years to be remotely mature and
reliable; after those couple of years, I bet Java, WxWindows, Qt, Harmony,
and just plain Linux/Gtk popularity will make the port totally
uninteresting to most people. 

Thus, contributing to Unix Gtk and Gnome strikes me as a much more
worthwhile way to spend time. Another good possibility would be working on
free Windows X servers, bringing them up to speed; if you can stomach C++
or Java, those are also good things to work on.

Havoc Pennington
http://pobox.com/~hp