1.4.3 What are the features of GNU Distributed Objects?

GNU Distributed Objects has many of the features of other distributed objects implementations, but, since it is free software, it can be ported to platforms for which other distributed objects implementations are not available.

[ NOTE: The GNU distributed object facilities have the same ease-of-use as Apple’s; be warned, however, that they are not compatible with each other. They have different class hierarchies, different instance variables, different method names, different implementation strategies and different network message formats. You cannot communicate with a Apple NSConnection using a GNU NSConnection.

Here are some differences between GNU distributed objects and Apple’s distributed objects: Apple NSDistantObject asks it’s remote target for the method encoding types and caches the results; GNU NSDistantObject gets the types directly from the local GNU "typed selector" mechanism if the information is known locally and only queries the remote target or caching encoding types when using a method that is not known to the local process. The NSProxy for the remote root object always has name and, once set, you cannot change the root object of a NSConnection; the GNU Proxy for the remote root object has a target address value just like all other Proxy’s, and you can change the root object as many times as you like. ].