[Mono-osx] Why not implement WPF using OpenGL on Mac OS X?

[Chuck Esterbrook]

My friends,

An alternative to implementing WPF is to create a new GUI framework
that could be summarized as:

* independent (does not adhere to WinForms or WPF)
* runs on Mono and .NET
* runs on Linux, Mac and Windows
* uses modern features like generics and extension methods
* implemented in managed code as much as possible
* community driven
* open source

This would not be a small feat, but there would be some savings in not
having to replicate every idiosyncrasy of a closed source framework
(MS WPF).

And there are great ideas in WPF like DockPanel, bubbling events and
so on. But there are also great ideas in AppKit, Prism/CAL, etc. We
could use any of them.

Also, some small subset of WinForms might be used to bootstrap this
with basics like windows and controls, but hopefully fully
encapsulated so that could be swapped out. This first version wouldn't
give you 3D nirvana like playing video on a rotating cube, but most
apps don't need such things.

There are other questions and issues to be worked out, but I hope you
get the general idea here. Open source projects such as MbUnit and
NHibernate are powerful enough and popular enough to stand on their
own. So how about an independent, cross platform, open source "NGui"
by our community, for our community?

-Chuck