
Gedit is unmaintained, some thoughts - Garbage
https://mail.gnome.org/archives/gedit-list/2017-July/msg00001.html
======
jordigh

        Also by contributing to gedit (probably for free), you help this guy
        selling gedit on Mac:
        https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/57936/gedit
        If you read this, please don't buy gedit there, there is a free (but
        older) version here:
        http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/binaries/mac/gedit/
    

Well, looks like selling a newer version is something that's entirely
marketable, then.

Maybe contribute to gedit _and_ try to sell an even newer version for Mac?
Selling free software isn't a bad thing to do.

~~~
camus2
> Maybe contribute to gedit and try to sell an even newer version for Mac?
> Selling free software isn't a bad thing to do.

AFAIK Gedit is GPL, at least, I'm not sure how this guy can sell this software
while not violating the license at the same time.

~~~
the_common_man
I have seen people complain like this often. It's like people don't understand
the meaning of free software licenses. Anyone can use the code in any context
as long as any changes made are available. Yes, totally no restrictions. A
business can build a billion dollar company from gedit and not give the
original author anything. This is how it works.

~~~
camus2
> It's like people don't understand the meaning of free software licenses.

It's like people don't understand there is many different "free software
licenses" as well.

> A business can build a billion dollar company from gedit and not give the
> original author anything.

A billion dollar company which sells GPL software will have to provide the
entire source and its modifications to their clients and make it available as
GPL so that the client can exploit it commercially without giving a single
cent to that billion dollar company.

~~~
ivanbakel
True, but if your customers don't choose to do that, your business model stays
intact, which is clearly what's happening here.

Moreover, if you understand that this isn't a violation of the license, what
were you saying in your original comment?

------
tyingq
I wonder how often it's actually used. The niche appears to be "notepad for
Unix like systems".

Meaning some intersection between a person likely to use Linux as a desktop,
but wants an editor mostly geared for the not-tech-savvy.

Not discounting gedit, but it feels very narrow niche to me.

~~~
aurelian15
I've been using gedit as my main programming environment for more than seven
years now (mainly C++/JavaScript/Python development). It integrates neatly
with GNOME 3, has a very clean, uncluttered interface and has all the features
I need through plugins (Git integration, embedded terminal, word based auto-
completion, block editing, highlighting of white space, auto-formating).
Coming from DOS/Windows I never got my head around Emacs/Vim due to the "non-
standard" user interface.

~~~
mixmastamyk
I'd recommend Geany, many more developer features yet still quick and
uncluttered, though you'll still have to go to the view menu and hide the
sidebar and message panes.

------
sandGorgon
A very good (and much faster) alternative is geany -
[https://www.geany.org/](https://www.geany.org/)

~~~
sparrish
I switched to geany over a year ago and couldn't be happier. Clipboard support
in gedit just kept getting worse and geany is so much faster and less prone to
crashes on very large files that would easily lockup and crash my desktop.

------
andrepd
For an actively maintained alternative (fork) to gedit, see xed:
[https://github.com/linuxmint/xed](https://github.com/linuxmint/xed)

------
amirouche
> It is important to write more libraries, sharing the code and maintenance
> among several similar applications.

It's not easy to write generic code.

~~~
copx
More importantly generic code is almost inevitably bloated, less efficient,
and more complex compared to code which only attempts to solve the actual
problem at hand, as opposed to attempting to provide a generic solution for
all imagined use cases.

A simple example would be a PRNG. Specialized version:

    
    
      int dice_roll = random(1,6);
    

Generic version (this is from C++'s standard lib):

    
    
      std::default_random_engine generator;
      std::uniform_int_distribution<int> distribution(1,6);
      int dice_roll = distribution(generator); 
    

The specialized version does not cover non-uniform distributions, nor the use
case where you need multiple PRNGs with independent states.. and is much
simpler and more straight-forward because of that.

Often generic solutions are the best trade-off in the end, but one should not
assume that more generic is automatically better.

I think the reliance of modern programmers on libraries which offer highly
generic (and thus almost inevitably sub-optimal) solutions is one of the
primary reasons for software boat.

~~~
andrepd
How do you mean, suboptimal? The fully generic version is 2 lines of
initialization more than the restricted version. Is 2 lines not an accepted
tradeoff for being able to change the engine, and crucially, to draw numbers
from _any_ distribution you want?

Furthermore I bet the generic, templated version is as small and fast as a
naive implementation. It's all templates so it's all static code generation.

~~~
copx
>How do you mean, suboptimal? The fully generic version is 2 lines of
initialization more than the restricted version.

I.e. a 200% increase in code size! Now imagine that throughout the entire code
base.

> Is 2 lines not an accepted tradeoff for being able to change the engine, and
> crucially, to draw numbers from any distribution you want?

It is a complete waste if you don't need that functionality. That is the
point. Generic solutions solve problems you don't even have, and that comes at
a price.

>Furthermore I bet the generic, templated version is as small and fast as a
naive implementation. It's all templates so it's all static code generation.

You kinda missed the point. I did not even specify how random(a,b) was
implemented, so making statements about the speed of the compiled code makes
no sense here.

C++'s templates are another nice example of the cost of generic code, though.
They are one of the primary reasons why compiling C++ is so slow / resource
intense. They have to be instantiated at compile-time again and again and
again.. which is a non-trivial process, much slower to compile than a plain
non-generic function call. Also they are historically infamous for producing
hard to understand error messages.

~~~
andrepd
That is _not_ a 200% increase in code size. It's a fixed two more lines of
code, that _may or may not_ translate into a bigger binary (if correctly
implemented it probably doesn't, even if it increases compile time a bit). I
mean that's just silly. I'll assume you write everything in one-liners, right,
since for some reason you find it important to minimise the arbitrary measure
of lines of code?

------
frik
I liked the Gedit from Gnome 2 and what shipped with Ubuntu 12, and 14. The
Ubuntu 16/17 and Gnome 3 Gedit is crap. I hate the UI change. The removal of
the menu, the ugly hamburger menu with few entries. Gnome 3 is like KDE 4/5 a
trainwreck - instead of create a cheap ripoff UI, why not stay with what
worked - Gnome 2 and KDE 3 were perfect, had a good UI, just slap a modern
theme over. And the newer worse incarnation aren't even touch friendly, well
like Win10 - ugly, slow - Win7 is the better one. Only Apple with macOS and
Google with Android get it right, iOS6, iOS11, Android 7 all look great and
modern, and the UI doesn't suck.

I will install "Ubuntu Mate", it comes with Gnome 2 shell built with gtk3.

~~~
wuch
I don't use gedit, but in general I like look and feel of GNOME 3
applications:

* Emphasis on undo instead of confirmation dialogs. Though, some applications got implementation completely wrong. Contacts, I am looking at you. It delays deleting a contact instead of offering a real undo, which means that if you exit early no action is performed at all.

* Different colors for constructive / destructive actions used consistently across applications.

* Keyboard shortcuts window. Though, I don't understand why most applications insist on making it modal, which essentially prohibits looking at shortcuts and trying them out at the same time.

* Headers bars. I prefer those over traditional menu bars, especially if number of different actions to perform is limited. Though, portability suffers as making it work in environments without client side decorations requires some custom code. Thus, if developer didn't take this into account it probably doesn't work.

* In-app notifications (used for example for example for undo I have already mentioned). Though, AFAIK this doesn't seem to be builtin part of GTK yet and require a little bit more custom code than other widgets.

* Empty placeholders! (Though, they might have been there already?)

------
tbrock
Wow, I've often fantasized about maintaining Geary or Empathy (also on the
unmaintained list).

Gnome needs solid lightweight email and messaging clients but I'm not sure I
have the time to do it.

I find that, now that Gnome has builder, the thing holding me back is lack of
documentation on how to get started with gnome dev (and use the numerous Gnome
libraries).

Earlier this week there was some talk on HN about google's kubernetes having
"documentation for geniuses" but it seems pretty approachable compared to the
Gnome stuff.

I think it's mostly because I'm not a strong enough C programmer and it's a
tall order to document things like GObject well for n00bs but if I knew how I
worked I'd be happy to document it for others.

~~~
zerocrates
Empathy is unmaintained? I think of it as being practically brand new. The
ongoing deaths of the legacy chat clients and protocols have clearly taken a
toll on enthusiasm.

~~~
iso-8859-1
And yet, irssi still lives :)

------
stuaxo
I see empathy is on the list of unmaintained software - it replaced pidgin
(which is still maintained), and is now itself maintained.

Maybe the lesson on that one is to work more with external apps instead of
replacing them.

------
denvercoder904
What are the qualifications for becoming a maintainer? Is the bar set high? Is
there a vetting process? I am interested but I'm not sure they will accept
just anyone as a maintainer.

~~~
wolco
A person who has submitted some pr fixes and shows an understanding of the
software stands a good chance.

~~~
honestoHeminway
Usually it is the guy who forks the original, and gets burried beneath
patches?

------
squarefoot
"If you read this, please don't buy gedit there"

The same misconceptions about GPL again and again and again and again. The
gist of the GPL is to give more freedom by limiting limitations, that is, you
can compile a GPL software and sell it for a trillion bucks and nobody -not
even RMS himself- will bark at you, provided that if you made any changes to
the software you make their source available along the compiled product.

The GPL is not about preventing users from selling the software, but rather
about preventing users from imposing limitations on other users, which is
exactly what commercial software licenses do. You can download a Debian image,
stick it onto a USB memory and sell it for 100 bucks, but you don't get the
right to prevent me from doing the same, or even sell it at half the price.
That's the way the GPL promotes both openness and competition.

~~~
progval
The author does not claim selling gedit binaries is illegal. Only that it is
unfair.

The rational is that it uses someone else's free (as in free beer) work and
sells it with very little added work.

~~~
pjmlp
Which is why there is little to nothing money to be made with desktop related
software, with FOSS development model.

~~~
progval
OsmAnd+ managed to have more than 100k paid installs (according to Google)
while being open source:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.osmand.plu...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.osmand.plus)

For most people, it is easier to pay than to compile software.

~~~
dTal
Considering you can freely download fully functional builds from F-Droid,
that's more likely a consequence of ignorance than laziness. Is it ethical to
profit from ignorance? Especially when others chose not to profit from yours?
What about when that ignorance is harmful to your ideals?

------
bondia
Or use Kate instead :)

~~~
khedoros1
Doesn't that pull in all the KDE libraries in the process, if the rest of the
software you use is built around GTK?

~~~
JdeBP
The GNOME Editor is hardly a good place from which to cast such criticism,
though. Gedit pulls in a whole load of entire external Desktop Bus services in
order to work, and indeed a second Desktop Bus, not only some shared libraries
inside the editor process. Moreover, that editor process isn't the one that
one might naïvely think it to be.

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13056252](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13056252)

~~~
khedoros1
I'm making the assumption that most people who'd be using gedit are already
running Gnome anyhow, and would already have all that stuff pulled in.

------
eklavya
Gnome needs a react native bridge.

~~~
SomeCallMeTim
Linux has Electron compatibility already. On desktop there is no good reason
to worry about "native" control performance.

And considering that React Native can barely seem to keep the controls in sync
on iOS and Android [0], trying to throw in a tiny minority platform like Gnome
makes no sense at all. Better to build controls for raw X or even an OpenGL UI
implementation. It's not like it's impossible to do the latter. [1]

In fact, VS Code _already_ runs mostly everywhere, has gotten a huge amount of
community mindshare in an amazingly short period of time, and at this point I
couldn't imagine ever using gedit for...well, anything, really. Why would I?

P.S. Not a downvoter.

[0] A friend is working on a project that's run into a number of "bug on
Android, not on iOS" that, once patched, became a "bug on iOS and not on
Android" issue. Rinse and repeat.

[1] [https://kivy.org/#home](https://kivy.org/#home)
[http://www.fltk.org/index.php](http://www.fltk.org/index.php)

~~~
senko
> On desktop there is no good reason to worry about "native" control
> performance.

I take it you've never used a Java Swing application.

~~~
SomeCallMeTim
You're right. I should have said there's no reason to worry about _competently
designed_ UI control performance.

Swing was, in fact, an absolute disaster.

------
binaryapparatus
Something odd is going on with FOSS scene in general, for some time. I really
don't like seeing great apps like gedit getting unmaintained.

Crap like systemd gets ton of corporate funding, versus tens of really
beautiful apps getting slowly neglected.

Not a good direction in general.

~~~
Eridrus
Corporate focus is almost certainly on Linux on servers rather than Linux
desktops.

~~~
frik
Systemd is not good. It tries to solve too many things and tries to extend and
replace more and more core functionality. So many security holes. In a year or
two, we will look back and say it was a very bad timeframe and several bad
decisions. Unfortunately both Debian and Redhat switched to systemd, meaning
all distros based on them as well. Only a few distros are left, let's hope
some sane people revert that hype.

~~~
ZenoArrow
I've got no 'skin in the game' as I don't use Linux, but ask yourself, if
systemd is so bad, why is it so popular amongst distro maintainers? There must
be some things its doing right. Even if you don't like systemd it's still a
good idea to understand those that do, if nothing else it'll make you more
effective in a debate about it.

~~~
digi_owl
Bundling. Gnome > logind > systemd.

Yeah yeah, Gnome can work without logind. But doing so is not easy and require
ongoing patches as new versions of Gnome rolls out.

And Gnome is THE gorilla in the Linux DE world.

~~~
ZenoArrow
Systemd was popular with distro maintainers before GNOME started to be built
around it. What was responsible for that initial surge of popularity (amongst
distro maintainers)?

------
Rjevski
Why would you need Gedit when you've got Sublime? 70$ and worth every cent.

~~~
kstrauser
You mean the one that's been in beta for the last 4 years without a stable
release in sight?

I like Sublime. I enjoy using Sublime. I paid for a Sublime license. Still,
the appearance of its impending bitrot made me switch back to Emacs.

~~~
Rjevski
To be honest the Sublime Text 3 "beta" has been perfectly stable for me for
the past 2 years.

------
mechnesium
It's pretty irresponsible to make something and then abandon it. It's like
having a baby and neglecting it.

~~~
progval
A baby will eventually grow and become mostly able to survive on their own.

Gedit is now 18 years old, you can't expect its developpers to go on forever.
Particularly if they now have actual babies and have less free time to spend
on Free Software.

