Re: [gtk-list] Re: To GTK, or not to GTK - that is the question

[Ulric Eriksson <ulric edu stockholm se>]

On Wed, 4 Nov 1998, Johannes Keukelaar wrote:

> Chris wrote something that boils down to (excuse my snipping):
> 
> //Why would I want use GTK instead of Motif? Why is everyone falling over
> //themselves to use GTK when we used to have Motif as the standard?
> 
> Do s/GTK/Linux/ s/Motif/Windows/ and you get:
> 
> Why would I want to use Linux instead of Windows? Why is everyone falling over 
> themselves to use Linux when we used to have Windows as the standard?

IMHO, the interesting question is: "If I don't want to use Motif, why
should I invent yet another widget set". And if the answer to that
question is that no alternatives exist, the next question is "If I'm going
to write a new widget set, why should I invent yet another object
framework".

People aren't falling over themselves to use Linux because it gratuitously
breaks existing standards. On the contrary, here is a quote from the
infamous "Linux is obsolete" war:

---
Torvalds:

The fact is that linux is more portable than minix.  What? I hear you
say.  It's true - but not in the sense that ast means: I made linux as
conformant to standards as I knew how (without having any POSIX standard
in front of me).  Porting things to linux is generally /much/ easier
than porting them to minix.
---
And Tanenbaum's reply:

MINIX was designed before POSIX, and is now being (slowly) POSIXized as 
everyone who follows this newsgroup knows.  Everyone agrees that user-level 
standards are a good idea.  As an aside, I congratulate you for being able 
to write a POSIX-conformant system without having the POSIX standard in front 
of you. I find it difficult enough after studying the standard at great length.
---

The lack of a decent Motif replacement for Linux makes porting to Linux
harder than porting to other Unixes, because like it or not, Motif is the
standard. And basing Gtk on a proprietary framework makes porting any Xt
based application harder than necessary, because like it or not, Xt is the
standard.

Ulric