A point about "Cocoa is Not OpenStep": CoreFoundation has a Windows port. It would not surprise me if Quartz (the CoreGraphics API, as opposed to the window server) had an internal Windows port as a proof of concept.
A port today would likely be simpler than OpenStep, in fact. The original OpenStep environment for Windows bundled Display PostScript. CF + CG + Foundation + AppKit would be a lot more efficient. There are a number of Carbon dependencies, but it wouldn't be unmanageable to remove them, or even maybe include a QTML-like subset of Carbon. You'd still have something more manageable than OpenStep for Windows, and a lot more amenable to producing apps that appear to be native Windows apps (if they ever bother to add a real layout manager to Cocoa).
I'm with you on the motivation, though. It makes about as much sense as Mac clones, or Mac OS for non-Apple x86. Although one might come up with a conspiracy theory about Apple porting more apps to Windows.
by Chris — May 15
A port today would likely be simpler than OpenStep, in fact. The original OpenStep environment for Windows bundled Display PostScript. CF + CG + Foundation + AppKit would be a lot more efficient. There are a number of Carbon dependencies, but it wouldn't be unmanageable to remove them, or even maybe include a QTML-like subset of Carbon. You'd still have something more manageable than OpenStep for Windows, and a lot more amenable to producing apps that appear to be native Windows apps (if they ever bother to add a real layout manager to Cocoa).
I'm with you on the motivation, though. It makes about as much sense as Mac clones, or Mac OS for non-Apple x86. Although one might come up with a conspiracy theory about Apple porting more apps to Windows.