Window Maker is an X11 window manager originally designed to provide integration support for the GNUstep Desktop Environment. In every way possible, it reproduces the elegant look and feel of the NEXTSTEP[tm] user interface. It is fast, feature rich, easy to configure, and easy to use. It is also free software, with contributions being made by programmers from around the world.

Window Maker includes compatibility options which allow it to work with other popular desktop environments, namely GNOME and KDE, and comes with a powerful GUI configuration editor, called WPrefs, which removes the need to edit text-based config files by hand.

As with most window managers it supports themes and many are available. Owing to its NeXTstepish design Window Maker shares a few fleeting, superficial similarities (but no underlying code) with the GUI of Apple Inc's Mac OS X, most notably the presence of a dock but without the mirrored shelf and bouncing animation (now included) effects upon launch.

Window Maker was written from scratch primarily by Brazilian programmer Alfredo Kojima for the GNUstep desktop environment and originally meant as an improved take on the AfterStep window manager's design concept. The first release was in 1997. For a time it was included as a standard window manager in several Linux distributions and was ported to FreeBSD in 2000. Since the goal of the project has been to closely emulate the earlier, clean industrial design of the NeXTstep and OpenStep GUIs, further development has been light. In late 2007 the widely available, stable release version was at 0.92 from July 2005 with subsequent maintenance updates having been made to some distribution packages and ports.

In late June 2008 a post on the project's website said active development would resume, noting, "...we are working very hard to revitalize Window Maker's presence on X Window (and perhaps beyond) desktops... We expect to once again provide the de-facto minimalist yet extremely functional window manager to the world."

Visit the Window Maker team at booth 37 and see http://www.windowmaker.info/ for more info on Window Maker