{"slug": "gnustep", "name": "GNUstep", "category": "dev-libs", "category_name": "Libraries and frameworks", "description": "", "recommenders": 5, "commenters": 10, "warners": 1, "score": 4.446, "rising": -1.64, "first": "2026-01-04", "latest": "2026-03-19", "why": "the results are a 20 minute build on low powered raspberry pi", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 5, "compare": 0, "warn": 1}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 2, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "the results are a 20 minute build on low powered raspberry pi", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": "gnustep.org", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://gnustep.org", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["GNUstep"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 759188784, "item_id": 47449299, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47449299", "by": "linguae", "date": "2026-03-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It's a shame GNUstep never took off", "excerpt": "I remember when I first learned about GNUstep in 2004 when I was in high school. It's a shame GNUstep never took off; we could have had an ecosystem of applications that could run on both macOS and Linux using native GUIs. With that said, the dream is not dead. There's a project named Gershwin (https://github.com/gershwin-desktop/gershwin-desktop), which is a Mac-like desktop environment built on top of GNUstep. Gers", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years"}, {"id": 759183104, "item_id": 47448944, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47448944", "by": "neoCrimeLabs", "date": "2026-03-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Also, https://www.gnustep.org/", "excerpt": "Also, https://www.gnustep.org/ That reminds me, I should pull out my NeXT Cube and play with it. That machine is 33mhz of pure power. :-D None the less I still love it.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years"}, {"id": 753531281, "item_id": 47095705, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47095705", "by": "lysace", "date": "2026-02-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "IMHO this should have been (something along the lines of) GNUstep + TimBL's original code", "excerpt": "It's a manual javascript imitation. Not sure why they felt this was needed. The original source code isn't really involved. This is the most commented HN posting on this from that time (2019): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19249373 IMHO this should have been (something along the lines of) GNUstep + TimBL's original code (https://github.com/cynthia/WorldWideWeb) + Emscripten + getting Emscripten to work with Ob", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "CERN rebuilt the original browser from 1989"}, {"id": 753150624, "item_id": 47071914, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47071914", "by": "spacedcowboy", "date": "2026-02-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "just use GNUstep pretty much directly", "excerpt": "I do. Of course, I\u2019m an ex-Apple engineer, have been using the language for 20 years, and tend to write my own code. I\u2019m also retired and doing it for fun, and there\u2019s no management team telling me what I can and can\u2019t do. Here\u2019s why: - I\u2019m one of those people who grew up coding assembly because high-level languages were too slow and too wasteful. When your memory is measured in bytes, not even kilobytes, every bit c", "context": "", "use_case": "Objective-C on Windows/Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why Not Objective-C"}, {"id": 743905171, "item_id": 46494073, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46494073", "by": "malco_2001", "date": "2026-01-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the results are a 20 minute build on low powered raspberry pi", "excerpt": "I used elementary the past and appreciated the visual design. It just never went far enough for me by not having global menus, application bundles, etc. I think given a little more time here this year Gershwin will catch up so to speak. Then we will have not only how it looks, how it is designed, how it operates, how it runs on nearly anything, cross platform support, etc. I recently began porting Ladybird from QT to", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "Qt", "story": "Gershwin-desktop: OS X-like Desktop Environment based on GNUStep"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 743889008, "item_id": 46493063, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46493063", "by": "lproven", "date": "2026-01-04", "stance": "warn", "quote": "They only seem to care about #1 and regard points 2-4 as annoying distractions.", "excerpt": "> I am absolutely blown away to have the author of AppImage (Probono) partnering with me :-) > which eventually brought me to making FuryBSD for a short time. Ahaaaa. I did not realise that. Perhaps you should mention that in a FAQ or something? I think tying the different projects together like that would make it clear there is a quite considerable bit of history in here. > I am very much looking forward to seeing t", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Gershwin-desktop: OS X-like Desktop Environment based on GNUStep"}]}], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["objective-c on windows/linux", "cross-platform app framework"], "compared": [{"slug": "gershwin", "name": "Gershwin", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "qt", "name": "Qt", "co": 1, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "ladybird", "name": "Ladybird", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "window-maker", "name": "Window Maker", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "nextspace", "name": "NEXTSPACE", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46484662", "title": "Gershwin-desktop: OS X-like Desktop Environment based on GNUStep", "mentions": 4}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47448328", "title": "Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47095429", "title": "CERN rebuilt the original browser from 1989", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47070863", "title": "Why Not Objective-C", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46841374", "title": "Swift is a more convenient Rust (2023)", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46749118", "title": "We are building a new browser from scratch, backed by a non-profit", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"neutral": 4, "warn": 1}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 2, "neutral": 1}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 759188784, "item_id": 47449299, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47449299", "by": "linguae", "date": "2026-03-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It's a shame GNUstep never took off", "excerpt": "I remember when I first learned about GNUstep in 2004 when I was in high school. It's a shame GNUstep never took off; we could have had an ecosystem of applications that could run on both macOS and Linux using native GUIs. With that said, the dream is not dead. There's a project named Gershwin (https://github.com/gershwin-desktop/gershwin-desktop), which is a Mac-like desktop environment built on top of GNUstep. Gers", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years"}, {"id": 759183104, "item_id": 47448944, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47448944", "by": "neoCrimeLabs", "date": "2026-03-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Also, https://www.gnustep.org/", "excerpt": "Also, https://www.gnustep.org/ That reminds me, I should pull out my NeXT Cube and play with it. That machine is 33mhz of pure power. :-D None the less I still love it.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Wayland set the Linux Desktop back by 10 years"}, {"id": 753542977, "item_id": 47096436, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47096436", "by": "krackers", "date": "2026-02-20", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "", "excerpt": "You can already run nextstep in browser, see https://aresluna.org/frame-of-preference/ (section \"Back to 1992\")", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "CERN rebuilt the original browser from 1989"}, {"id": 753531281, "item_id": 47095705, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47095705", "by": "lysace", "date": "2026-02-20", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "IMHO this should have been (something along the lines of) GNUstep + TimBL's original code", "excerpt": "It's a manual javascript imitation. Not sure why they felt this was needed. The original source code isn't really involved. This is the most commented HN posting on this from that time (2019): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19249373 IMHO this should have been (something along the lines of) GNUstep + TimBL's original code (https://github.com/cynthia/WorldWideWeb) + Emscripten + getting Emscripten to work with Ob", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "CERN rebuilt the original browser from 1989"}, {"id": 753150624, "item_id": 47071914, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47071914", "by": "spacedcowboy", "date": "2026-02-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "just use GNUstep pretty much directly", "excerpt": "I do. Of course, I\u2019m an ex-Apple engineer, have been using the language for 20 years, and tend to write my own code. I\u2019m also retired and doing it for fun, and there\u2019s no management team telling me what I can and can\u2019t do. Here\u2019s why: - I\u2019m one of those people who grew up coding assembly because high-level languages were too slow and too wasteful. When your memory is measured in bytes, not even kilobytes, every bit c", "context": "", "use_case": "Objective-C on Windows/Linux", "switched_from": "", "story": "Why Not Objective-C"}, {"id": 749502880, "item_id": 46843930, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46843930", "by": "hgs3", "date": "2026-01-31", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "you can use Objective-C on non-Apple platforms [1] and with Cocoa APIs courtesy of the GNUstep project [2]", "excerpt": "> Apple being the largest sponsor of Objective-C would suggest that you get greater vendor lock-in out of it than Swift Fun fact, you can use Objective-C on non-Apple platforms [1] and with Cocoa APIs courtesy of the GNUstep project [2]. [1] https://github.com/gnustep/libobjc2 [2] https://www.gnustep.org/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Swift is a more convenient Rust (2023)"}, {"id": 748191377, "item_id": 46761961, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46761961", "by": "wmlive", "date": "2026-01-25", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "working on GNUstep integration for this browser", "excerpt": "Someone is also working on GNUstep integration for this browser: https://github.com/pkgdemon/ladybird/issues/1 https://old.reddit.com/r/gnustep/comments/1q0pdd6/ladybird_port_for_gnustep/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "We are building a new browser from scratch, backed by a non-profit"}, {"id": 745416017, "item_id": 46588501, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46588501", "by": "pjmlp", "date": "2026-01-12", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "play around with GNUStep integration", "excerpt": "From where I am standing it feels more like bug fixing than anything else, like it was back in the 2000's, when I used to see what were the new WINGs coming out, and play around with GNUStep integration.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "XFCE Is Great"}, {"id": 743905171, "item_id": 46494073, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46494073", "by": "malco_2001", "date": "2026-01-04", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "the results are a 20 minute build on low powered raspberry pi", "excerpt": "I used elementary the past and appreciated the visual design. It just never went far enough for me by not having global menus, application bundles, etc. I think given a little more time here this year Gershwin will catch up so to speak. Then we will have not only how it looks, how it is designed, how it operates, how it runs on nearly anything, cross platform support, etc. I recently began porting Ladybird from QT to", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "Qt", "story": "Gershwin-desktop: OS X-like Desktop Environment based on GNUStep"}, {"id": 743899825, "item_id": 46493739, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46493739", "by": "malco_2001", "date": "2026-01-04", "stance": "compare", "quote": "let us be the desktop, let them be the core libs", "excerpt": "Apologies I am not familiar with how to quote back here. I'll just try to stay in order. I think that is a great suggestion to try to document the history of how Gershwin came to be. I'll put some thought into how to do that soon. We do largely operate outside of GNUstep. Now we approach it like let us be the desktop, let them be the core libs. My take is I do think GNUstep should be marketed as more of a cross platf", "context": "", "use_case": "Cross-platform app framework", "switched_from": "", "story": "Gershwin-desktop: OS X-like Desktop Environment based on GNUStep"}, {"id": 743889008, "item_id": 46493063, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46493063", "by": "lproven", "date": "2026-01-04", "stance": "warn", "quote": "They only seem to care about #1 and regard points 2-4 as annoying distractions.", "excerpt": "> I am absolutely blown away to have the author of AppImage (Probono) partnering with me :-) > which eventually brought me to making FuryBSD for a short time. Ahaaaa. I did not realise that. Perhaps you should mention that in a FAQ or something? I think tying the different projects together like that would make it clear there is a quite considerable bit of history in here. > I am very much looking forward to seeing t", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Gershwin-desktop: OS X-like Desktop Environment based on GNUStep"}, {"id": 743835312, "item_id": 46489707, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46489707", "by": "malco_2001", "date": "2026-01-04", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The GTK theme engine from GNUstep can also be used to set a", "excerpt": "The GTK theme engine from GNUstep can also be used to set a \"Rhapsody\" theme. It just allows using GTK themes. Here is an example of what that looks like https://github.com/pkgdemon/screenshots/blob/main/yellowbox-01.png?raw=true I'd also like to make a native theme for that layout at some point.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Gershwin-desktop: OS X-like Desktop Environment based on GNUStep"}]}