The 1990's were looking so great for C++ adoption on desktop, we had Mac OS (pity about Object Pascal, but at least there was PowerPlant), OS/2 (with CSet++, and OWL), MS-DOS (with Turbo Vision), Windows (with OWL, VCL, MFC, ATL), BeOS (with its Kits), Epoch/Symbian, Windows CE (with MFC),...
And then rise of FOSS happened, with the original GNU contribution guidelines asserting only C and Lisp as the all mighty languages for the GNU ecosystem to build upon.
And then rise of FOSS happened, with the original GNU contribution guidelines asserting only C and Lisp as the all mighty languages for the GNU ecosystem to build upon.