Slashdot Mirror
GnuCash - A Call For Help
sedition writes "GnuCash developer Benoit Gregoire has written the State of the GnuCash Project. It is a call for help to the Open Source community regarding the open-source accounting software for Linux, Mac OSX, and more. GnuCash is one of the largest (287,853 lines of code), but least publicized Open Source projects. Now it needs developer support, as its future is uncertain."
For a moment there I thought RMS was claiming to have invented money.
10,000 GNU dollars to the project.
Why have the crispy US dollars backed by the Treasury and US Government when we can have GNUCash?
Actually, it sounds really boring. Who wants to talk about GAAP and General Ledgers? Bean counters, maybe... *yawn*.
To help despreatly lighten the load on the server, here is the text of the annonucement.
State of the GnuCash project, a call for help
The GnuCash project is having a hard time. I think most everyone agrees that GnuCash is a critical piece of software for the Linux desktop. It's also one the largest free software projects. How big is it? GnuCash currently has 287,853,430 physical source lines of code (SLOC). For example, had the current GnuCash CVS been included in RedHat 7.1, it would come in 21st position in code size (see http://www.dwheeler.com/sloc/). At that time, the current GnuCash CVS source would have been pretty similar in size to qt, postgresql or perl, about 60% of Gimp and between 12% and 16% of Xfree, Mozilla or the Linux kernel. Although GnuCash comes up in every discussion of needed software to get Linux on the desktop, the GnuCash project currently has only about seven active developers (active being used very loosely here, considering I included myself) and enjoys far less exposure than many projects of a similar size.
We may be headed for a dead end if we don't reorganize and refocus our efforts. GnuCash badly needs more manpower (not just developers), and needs to get it quickly.
How did we get here
Of course, every project could always use more developers, but the consecutive demise of both Gnumatic and Linux Developers Group caused the loss of most of GnuCash's core developers two years ago. The few volunteers that were left focused on new features, in the hopes of attracting users and hopefully also developers. We've managed to take it to 1.8.5 (to be released in a few days), and in the process GnuCash gained Small Business features, Scheduled Transactions, a completely new import UI with Bayesian filtering, OFX and HBCI support, Mortage and Loan Repayment druid, and many, many others. We are very proud of it and we clearly have more users judging from traffic on gnucash-users, and all should now be well in GnuCash-land.
Not quite. We didn't attract many new developers and all those new features have to be maintained and debugged. They also represent a huge tech support burden, since most of the features were not documented properly due to time constraints. GnuCash has grown too large for the current developers to properly debug and maintain the current code base, add new features and write documentation, all at the same time.
I hate to admit it, but in our quest for new features, choices had to be made and a lot of important things are currently being neglected. If the GnuCash project can't manage to attract more contributors and refocus the efforts of those it already has, it's going to become unmanageable. We often say that Linux would survive even if Linus got hit by a bus. Well, right now I am not too certain that GnuCash would currently survive if Derek Atkins got hit by a bus.
So now I'll try to suggest some solutions.
What core developers should do to help future developers
There are many reasons for our difficulties to attract developers and other contributors, but it all comes back to the same problem: real or perceived, the barrier to entry is too high. To get more developers, we must make it easier to contribute to GnuCash. "Casual" sex with Cmdrtaco to scratch an itch is much to hard, even for an experienced developer.
Work on the developer documentation problem
There is no complete and current architecture and API reference. Now that we've put the doxygen plumbing in place, we must make sure that ALL functions that are in public headers ARE documented, even if only by saying "Document me!", so the doxygen docs become truly authoritative. Then put the docs on the web site. We must also write a report writing Howto: We already have some very powerful reports, but this is the single most common offer for help we receive "Hi, I'd like to write "foo" report for GnuCash, can someone help me or point me to documentation on that subject". Sometimes I wonder if anyone knows anymore... So the answer is always the
How did it get so many lines of code if it isn't very well known? Do we have one coder slaving away on this one?
Sorry, I know I'll get modded down to nothing, but I've got Karma to burn and this just cracked me up:
Mortgage and Loan Repayment druid and many, many others.
I imagined the barbarian horde from those Capital One "What's In Your Wallet?" ads fighting it out with the Loan Repayment druids, like something from Star Wars II or The Two Towers.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
gnucash.org seems to be "benefiting" from the publicity. Here's the first part of Benoit's post for those who care:
State of the GnuCash project, a call for help
The GnuCash project is having a hard time. I think most everyone agrees that GnuCash is a critical piece of software for the Linux desktop. It's also one the largest free software projects. How big is it? GnuCash currently has 287,853 physical source lines of code (SLOC). For example, had the current GnuCash CVS been included in RedHat 7.1, it would come in 21st position in code size (see http://www.dwheeler.com/sloc/). At that time, the current GnuCash CVS source would have been pretty similar in size to qt, postgresql or perl, about 60% of Gimp and between 12% and 16% of Xfree, Mozilla or the Linux kernel. Although GnuCash comes up in every discussion of needed software to get Linux on the desktop, the GnuCash project currently has only about seven active developers (active being used very loosely here, considering I included myself) and enjoys far less exposure than many projects of a similar size.
We may be headed for a dead end if we don't reorganize and refocus our efforts. GnuCash badly needs more manpower (not just developers), and needs to get it quickly.
How did we get here
Of course, every project could always use more developers, but the consecutive demise of both Gnumatic and Linux Developers Group caused the loss of most of GnuCash's core developers two years ago. The few volunteers that were left focused on new features, in the hopes of attracting users and hopefully also developers. We've managed to take it to 1.8.5 (to be released in a few days), and in the process GnuCash gained Small Business features, Scheduled Transactions, a completely new import UI with Bayesian filtering, OFX and HBCI support, Mortage and Loan Repayment druid, and many, many others. We are very proud of it and we clearly have more users judging from traffic on gnucash-users, and all should now be well in GnuCash-land.
Not quite. We didn't attract many new developers and all those new features have to be maintained and debugged. They also represent a huge tech support burden, since most of the features were not documented properly due to time constraints. GnuCash has grown too large for the current developers to properly debug and maintain the current code base, add new features and write documentation, all at the same time.
I hate to admit it, but in our quest for new features, choices had to be made and a lot of important things are currently being neglected. If the GnuCash project can't manage to attract more contributors and refocus the efforts of those it already has, it's going to become unmanageable. We often say that Linux would survive even if Linus got hit by a bus. Well, right now I am not too certain that GnuCash would currently survive if Derek Atkins got hit by a bus.
So now I'll try to suggest some solutions...
(that's as far as I could get)
Still hoping for Gentle Treatment...
- Write free software
- Ask for developers on Slashdot to share the pain with you
- Profit!!
Impressive!If this software is so important then why not raise some money and pay some developers to work on it. If the creators really believe in the project they should be confident that they'll make the spent money back in support (or at least t-shirt sales)
GNUcash is so complex. Why anyone would want to develop or even usefor the GNUcash project is a mystery to me (maybe if you're an accountant). Better to develop for Kmymoney2, a nice KDE/Qt C++ app, which behaves more like Quicken and Microsoft Money, the two most popular money managment apps. Kmymoney2 is the only real alternative to GNUcash for the future in my opinion. Let GNUcash die, and some new apps will come...
Why don't we have GnuCash selling licenses to those who actually need and are willing to pay for it? This way the company can hire more people if the project turns out to be interesting and needed by many people. It's radical, but seems to work for lots of other little guys.
287,853 lines of code
That's big. Windows 3.11 by itself was only 33,000 lines, give or take.
As someone who uses Gnucash (I'm an accountant, too) I had no idea the project was in trouble. This is one of the best programs I've come across in the Linux world, and I think it's superior to similar commercial packages. The operation is closer to how you're taught to do accounting, and I love it for that. Well, if someone out there knows how a sympathetic non-coder could lend a hand, let me know. Yes, I did RTFA, and I didn't see a way to contribute without knowing how to hack code.
IAAL
...a decent web server.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
"You have been recruited by the GNU League to defend the frontier against Gates and the Quicken armada..."
GNUCash calls for help ?
or GNU calls cash help ?
I personally like the idea of having alternatives to proprietary software.
+5 funny
Find a complete mirror of the article here.
I tried to get my wife to use it. She was taking a personal finance class that required Quicken. I thought we could give GnuCash a try and maybe save some dough/impress the teacher.
Boy was I wrong. I figured out the take-out-of-one-account-to-credit-another system, but I couldn't figure out how to put money into the system.
Anyway, we spent a few hours on it, but eventually just forked over the dough for Quicken and rebooted into Windows.
I'm not wishing death to GnuCash, but it is in need of huge improvements to be up their with the other accounting (personal and otherwise) that I've seen.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
Here's the rest. I'm not posting AC because of the new troll technique (posting "creatively modified" mirror text).
What core developers should do to help future developers
There are many reasons for our difficulties to attract developers and other contributors, but it all comes back to the same problem: real or perceived, the barrier to entry is too high. To get more developers, we must make it easier to contribute to GnuCash. "Casual" hacking on GnuCash to scratch an itch is much to hard, even for an experienced developer.
Work on the developer documentation problem
There is no complete and current architecture and API reference. Now that we've put the doxygen plumbing in place, we must make sure that ALL functions that are in public headers ARE documented, even if only by saying "Document me!", so the doxygen docs become truly authoritative. Then put the docs on the web site. We must also write a report writing Howto: We already have some very powerful reports, but this is the single most common offer for help we receive "Hi, I'd like to write "foo" report for GnuCash, can someone help me or point me to documentation on that subject". Sometimes I wonder if anyone knows anymore... So the answer is always the same: 'there isn't any; use the source Luke'. We are wasting the chance to hook countless new developers.
Fix core capabilities in the engine
Existing developers should focus on architecture issues and completing existing core features that only they can realistically tackle, such as Lots (which are needed to support accounting periods) or fixing the problems in the scheduled transactions, so that new developers can build on that functionality.
Improve interoperability with other software or new modules
GnuCash has a great, powerful multi-user financial engine that many people ask to plug into. Unfortunately much of this power is locked away. There is no way to interface with a running GnuCash (the RPC backend and perl bindings have bitrotted), there is no way to start a new instance while passing parameters like "import this file". We need a wrapper that will start GnuCash if it isn't already started and pass API requests to it, with or without GUI. The current module system needs to be completed or replaced. It's hard for new developers to integrate new modules in the build and menu system (we need a howto on that too...). Also, data import isn't enough, we must also support export to inter-operate with other software. (LibOfx should get us there if I can just find time to work on it).
I think fixing/developing external interfaces and writing additional import and export support should greatly help our developer crunch in the medium term, by consolidating part of financial software development in the free software ecosystem. We have received many, many inquiries from people wanting to integrate gnucash with (name of web system, database, payroll, kde front end or whatever). We can't afford to loose these people, whether or not the core developers like their pet project. We must use the gnome 2 port as an opportunity to finish/cleanup/document our interfaces and from then on answer "I don't know if your idea will work, but you're welcome to try; here's the relevant documents to get you started."
What developers should do to help users and decrease developer load
Make sure the mailing lists are easily searchable
And/or document how to properly search them (Google isn't cutting it).
Get more people write access to the website
We have received many offers to help, but turned most of them down for no good reason. The website is nice, but it isn't up to date, it's a source of frustration, misleading to users and future developers, and pointlessly increases traffic on gnucash-user and the #gnucash IRC channel.
Quickly implement a Wiki or similar system
This will allow us to have an effective place to point users on gnucash-user
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
...in brinance a command-line driven ledger app. I like it. Have a look.
I must admit that I have NEVER had Gnucash crash on me. Not even once. No lost transactions, no corrupted files, nothing...
Of course I run Quicken, oh well
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
I suppose the real reason is that this project needs 'sexing up'. "I contributed to Mozilla/The Linux Kernal/Some cool game" just sounds more geeky than "I just coded a real tricky multi-compund interest rate function for GNUCash!"
They don't want money?
Someone quickly throw up a domain to siphon off money that SCO is going to be seeking from someone, for something, somewhere down the line.
MoFscker
I hope you are joking.
GENERATION 25: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social exper
If only it worked with Gnome 2? I mean honestly, even after installing Gnome 1.4 in hopes of being able to use GNUCash, I got it to run only to notice that there was no text, anywhere. None. Maybe thats a problem that only I'm lucky enough to have, but I'm sure if it didnt take so much to use it, more people would. It seems silly to have to install an entire (or at least most of) an old version of a "complete desktop environment" just to run one app.
Chaos is Divine *
Thus, I think the ideal solution would be for the project team to generate revenue, either by support or find a paying customer (who would allow release of the source). Suppose they wrote a book and released a free CD of the source code with it? Would that generate enough royalties? This may be hard in the current economic climate, but I think it would give them their best chances. Would vendors who are making big Linux pushes be interested? Have the project leaders directly solicited input (and contributions) from these vendors (e.g. IBM)?
State of the GnuCash project, a call for help
The GnuCash project is having a hard time. I think most everyone agrees that GnuCash is a critical piece of software for the Linux desktop. It's also one the largest free software projects. How big is it? GnuCash currently has 287,853 physical source lines of code (SLOC). For example, had the current GnuCash CVS been included in RedHat 7.1, it would come in 21st position in code size (see http://www.dwheeler.com/sloc/). At that time, the current GnuCash CVS source would have been pretty similar in size to qt, postgresql or perl, about 60% of Gimp and between 12% and 16% of Xfree, Mozilla or the Linux kernel. Although GnuCash comes up in every discussion of needed software to get Linux on the desktop, the GnuCash project currently has only about seven active developers (active being used very loosely here, considering I included myself) and enjoys far less exposure than many projects of a similar size.
We may be headed for a dead end if we don't reorganize and refocus our efforts. GnuCash badly needs more manpower (not just developers), and needs to get it quickly.
How did we get here
Of course, every project could always use more developers, but the consecutive demise of both Gnumatic and Linux Developers Group caused the loss of most of GnuCash's core developers two years ago. The few volunteers that were left focused on new features, in the hopes of attracting users and hopefully also developers. We've managed to take it to 1.8.5 (to be released in a few days), and in the process GnuCash gained Small Business features, Scheduled Transactions, a completely new import UI with Bayesian filtering, OFX and HBCI support, Mortage and Loan Repayment druid, and many, many others. We are very proud of it and we clearly have more users judging from traffic on gnucash-users, and all should now be well in GnuCash-land.
Not quite. We didn't attract many new developers and all those new features have to be maintained and debugged. They also represent a huge tech support burden, since most of the features were not documented properly due to time constraints. GnuCash has grown too large for the current developers to properly debug and maintain the current code base, add new features and write documentation, all at the same time.
I hate to admit it, but in our quest for new features, choices had to be made and a lot of important things are currently being neglected. If the GnuCash project can't manage to attract more contributors and refocus the efforts of those it already has, it's going to become unmanageable. We often say that Linux would survive even if Linus got hit by a bus. Well, right now I am not too certain that GnuCash would currently survive if Derek Atkins got hit by a bus.
So now I'll try to suggest some solutions.
What core developers should do to help future developers
There are many reasons for our difficulties to attract developers and other contributors, but it all comes back to the same problem: real or perceived, the barrier to entry is too high. To get more developers, we must make it easier to contribute to GnuCash. "Casual" hacking on GnuCash to scratch an itch is much to hard, even for an experienced developer.
Work on the developer documentation problem
There is no complete and current architecture and API reference. Now that we've put the doxygen plumbing in place, we must make sure that ALL functions that are in public headers ARE documented, even if only by saying "Document me!", so the doxygen docs become truly authoritative. Then put the docs on the web site. We must also write a report writing Howto: We already have some very powerful reports, but this is the single most common offer for help we receive "Hi, I'd like to write "foo" report for GnuCash, can someone help me or point me to documentation on that subject". Sometimes I wonder if anyone knows anymore... So the answer is always the same: 'there isn't any; use the source Luke'. We are wasting the chance to hook countless new developers.
Actually, although you are right about it having a Byzantine list of dependencies--it has NOT been ported to Gnome 2 yet (that is part of the problem!), plus it is the only application of its kind. In my mind this is a Killer App (TM), which is one main reason I have for using Linux and staying with it...I am certainly on my way over to #gnucash to help out as much as I can.
"Life is tough but we're tougher. You only get what you give, so give all that you've got." --Tony LaRussa
There are other projects that need help, to succeed they need all the help they can get. Heres just a small list of desperate projects.
1) Mozilla, one of the largest projects in open source, bigger than KDE and Xfree86 combined.
2) GNOME, the popular desktop. It needs more help in polishing its rough spots and needs features.
3) XFree86, this thing needs a lot of help in cleaning up its messy codebase.
4) Konqueror. The web browser partially developed by Apple for KDE. Its getting good at rendering websites but it needs a clean up and a good debugging.
6) Bochs. If you want to be able to emulate more than a 640x480x4 display, then give it your code.
7) Abiword. This word processor needs better Msword support and proper table support.
8) Kbounce. Its the best game for linux! help those balls roll!
9) gnu/hurd. Will this thing ever get usb support? Maybe you could help.
10) Linux kernel. Want it to keep running reliable and support all the new goodies. Then download 2.6.0-test3-bk2 tonight!
And theres hundreds more. Instead of complaining on slashdot that your favourite probram isn't working properly, help fix it!
Why is Gnucash unpopular? Because 3 out of every 4 people I've talked with who've wanted to try it couldn't satisfy the dependencies for their distribution (most of these people aren't newbies to Linux either.)
That said, it truly is in a league of its own in the Linux software world, and I hope it finds what it's looking for in new developers.
Disclaimer: I haven't used it for a year or more, so it may have overcome some of this already
Damn, imagine what I could do with a quarter of a million lines of python code. Seriously C is a great language for systems work, but writing accounting packages in C is just not the way to go.
Got Code?
I gave up on trying to use GnuCash long ago due to the impossibility of compiling it, and getting it to run.
They used large numbers of libraries, which you had to locate yourself. No links to the proper versions either. You needed specific versions of those libraries, some no longer available from that libraries web site, and some pulled from CVS at some unspecified time (and no other time would work).
The database it used was their own creation (why should we use an existing library for the database? That would only add another dependency, but here's another error logging library that we can't live without). It was unaccessable to mere humans, and messed up the database all too frequently.
After they added yet another round of libraries (several of them not yet available on the web), I finally gave up. It was simply unbuildable and unusable, and I could not forsee it as ever becoming usable, let alone ever be able to compile it.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Even though I've been in biz for over 20 years I know dick all about accounting and fully rely on very excellent experts.
Mind you I do know how to program, and 278K of code is not all that big. I've built much bigger systems in the past.
So, in short I think you have a good suggestion here and perhaps if the accounting professionals team up with the developers good things might happen!
I'm not sure that a better solution wouldn't be to implement all of the checkbook functions in GnuCash in GnuE. It seems like a more flexible framework for doing this kind of stuff. Plus it provides an architecture that a user can move up the 'business ladder' to eventually become enterprise size.
Now, mind you, I'm not volunteering - I have enough free software work right now. And, I'm still happily using GnuCash - but I still think it's a good idea :)
I heard a rumor that the GnuCash and GnuE folks were talking about getting together at one point, but that never worked out... bummer.
Anyone heard any official word on this?
evil evil die die
Well, it sounds good in theory, but really, all you're gonna get is "In Soviet Russia, MONEY watches YOU!" comments and goatse.cx links hidden in the code.
I'm sure all of us slashdotting his site isn't helping the cause.
we'd like to know when to expect a 'product' comparable to turbotax(tm)?
we'd chip in for that too.
That GNU cash has more lines of code than people in the USA?
Damn straight. Heck, I personally like the idea of having alternatives to anything. Competition == Good Thing(tm).
They can't attract developers because
nobody wants to code in Scheme...
You have to know how to hack scheme to create reports. Something seriously needs to be done about that.
Don't get me wrong, scheme is great, but with the hundreds of (gnc:foo-bar-quux) functions that aren't documented well enough for the casual programmer.
It is simply too hard to extract useful information out of gnucash, and too hard to use gnucash to do anything with the information it maintains.
Dead straight serious until about halfway down, then a very casual reference to sex with CmdrTaco, then it continues on in the serious tone.
I don't think I've ever seen one quite like it.
Best of all, he pulled up to at least +4 before anyone recognized the troll.
Mod as you will, but sometimes trolls are a work of art, and this one clearly is a nice troll.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
... I would have thought that developers would have been clammering to spend their spare hours contributing to a little known accounting package.
Maybe after a little publicity it will be more attractive.
I'd contribute, a microdot on every document that the system ever produced could contain a tribute to me and the girl I currently fancy.
"Wow so many lines of code! great...its so unreliable..."
Wait, you say GNUcash sucks, but then start complaining about Windows. What gives?
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
The summary says it has 287,853 lines of code, but the site says 287,853,430!
That's quite a difference.
I said alternatives to proprietary software. Everything you named is proprietary.
Were the extra 287,565,577 lines in the code used to have "casaul" sex with cmdrtaco?
"To get more developers, we must make it easier to contribute to GnuCash. "Casual" sex with Cmdrtaco to scratch an itch is much to hard, even for an experienced developer"
What if this wasn't a troll?
God Help Us!
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
*sob* The last starfighter.
Recently managed to get it on Laserdisc.. aaah, the memories (hadn't seen it since "back then")...
"GNU's not Unix....it's Linux" / Kami "kokamomi" Petersen
Yes one feature I would like to see is .....
I=2;
I++;
if(I==4) {
printf("This would solve most of my problems\n");
else
printf("I can't change the rules\n");
}
I am not sure what affords GnuCash the title of "least publicized," as I've heard the title many times and infact it came with RedHat whenever I last installed that.
/. that two major things keeping me away from using Linux is the lack of any sort of decent finance management software and an Outlook-type thing. My whole life is in MS Money and Outlook.
Some months ago I said on
I heard things about GnuCash being hopeless to install unless it came packaged with your distro, so I was excited when I found out that the version of RH about to come out will include it.
Thus began my most-recent attempt to switch to Linux. I exported my Outlook archives into Evolution, and my Ms Money accounts into GnuCash.
It lasted about a week. By the end of the week I was thoroughly dissapointed with the mediocrity of both of the pieces of software. Yes, they are usable. yes, GnuCash added up numbers together, but no,the user experience was mediocre compared to what I was used to with my Microsoft applications. That, and the shitty sound support, eventually made me say "fuck it" and switch back to Win2k and I'm happily using it since.
I think most everyone agrees that GnuCash is a critical piece of software for the Linux desktop. Yes. Absolutely....
GnuCash is a long program (well at work we deal with about 150 times that much code..) but from a user perspective of someone who's known better, it sucks. I am glad that the focus isn't only to find more coders. What this thing needs is some normal human beings using it and saying "you know what, it's NOT acceptable that window A obscures window B and freezes while window B is waiting for input from me." It needs, I am sorry to say, Quicken or MS Money users, who say "It was really easy to do X, Y, and Z, but here, I can't even figure out if it's possible,"
Good luck to this project, absolutely. Maybe - evnetually - projects like this will mature and become useful to people who don't care about open source and don't hate Microsoft. Yes, GnuCash appeals if you're maniacal about those things. It does not appeal if you're looking for better and more useable software. Unfortunately, a lot of Linux stuff can be described thusly.
Ecce Europa - Web Design for Business
I was thinking of writing the exact same thing.
:)
If it were in Python, I might volunteer to help myself.
Seriously, can anyone name ONE SINGLE advantage that C (or even C++) has over Python for this type of app? Certainly, Python is fast enough -- so what if it has to cycle through all your records once in a while. That's not going to take all day. With C/C++ you have to worry about all kinds of low level crap like buffer overflows. You shouldn't have to think about that kind of thing when writing applications that involve business logic. You should only have to focus on the application logic, something Python lets you do much better than C/C++ does.
" Hmm, I'm wondering how does Red Hat makes money"
Red Hat makes money? I'm ALL FOR OSS making money, but how many quarters have they been in the black?
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
This fits into my pet theory of successful open-source projects rather nicely; every single flaw except one boils down to a lack of documentation.
"Work on the developer documentation problem" - obvious
"Fix core capabilities in the engine" - the exception, though one could stretch and observe that a lot of the problem is probably that nobody has a clue what is broken due to lack of documentation.
"Improve interoperability with other software or new modules" - fundamentally, the fact it was "non-interoperable" in the first place boils down to a lack of documentation, because why bother adding hooks to anything if nobody can figure out how to use them in less then a year? Adding hooks is easy, relatively speaking, and the payback is huge; the only reason to not do it is if you realize nobody could possibly use them if you added them.
"Make sure the mailing lists are easily searchable" - obvious
"Get more people write access to the website" - obvious
"Quickly implement a Wiki or similar system" - obvious
"Spend less time answering some types of questions" - they should be able to point people at a FAQ, a common type of documentation
If it isn't documented, it doesn't exist. GnuCash's problem is an excess of non-existence, which is rather odd considering how many lines of code it has.
It is so much easier to start the documentation in the first place, and keep it up, then to get to 250,000 LOC and just then try to start. Sometimes clever coders can actually be a liability to a project, because they can plow on where lesser men and women would have needed to pause, document, possibly re-organize, and simplify.
my $s = 'DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS, DEVELOPERS';
$s =~ s/DEVELOPERS/DOCUMENT IT/g;
And you would complain they were a karma whore if they hadn't. I think it's quite good, entices one to read the article, thus helping inform us all!
puts ("Python r0cks\n");
I don't mean for this to be a troll, but, really, Linux is never going to have applications for end users under the open source model if the applications being developed are not glamorous in some way.
GNUCash... what's that? What's sexy about accounting?
You aren't going to get people to work on that unless you pay them, or, they want to write their own business rules engine. So, either finish GNUCash on your own, or, someone else will step up to the plate with a better, more elegant model.
Throwing more bodies at a problem is a Microsoft approach and the whole idea behind oss is that hopefully someone will step up to the plate with that really radical idea that simplifies everything and gets you from 250k lines of crap to maybe 50-100k lines of sane code.
One of these days I'll learn to not post when I haven't had a beer...
This is my sig.
Version 1.6 has crashed on me a few times. More frequently, my X server crashes (Xwin32 doesn't always enjoy GnuCash for some reason). When that happens, I lose the unsaved transactions. I'd like to see it either append to a lightweight transaction (if you have a large ledger) or save after each transaction is changed (better for smaller ledgers). This way, even if you do crash, you only lose the what you haven't entered.
/ \
\ / ASCII ribbon campaign for peace
x
/ \
[1] volunteers only work on the fun stuff.
[2] There are not enough volunteers to go around.
[3] Some stuff is not sexy and will never get done by volunteers
[4] Some types of software you will always have to pay for.
You gotta laugh at the Gnome/KDE/etc wars. Get your act together and standardize if you ever want to overtake the Redmond Devils.
Slashdot entertains. Windows pays the mortgage.
Well I admit I went ahead and read most of the comments while I was waiting for the server to respond.... And a lot of the criticism of the GnuCash team sounded reasonable. But, after reading the FA, I have to say... Go GnuCash, and that accountant guy who loves it so much should write a book about how to use it, in collaboration with the developers who are currently documenting the API.
/. community... they didn't come here, we (or, at least the /. editors) brought the story here. So, how about some constructive responses to their plan? I think if they can get half of it done in the next few months, the project will live and evolve for many more years. Sounds like the compromise of using C and Scheme could work great here (you Python developers are trolling), as long as the core and plugin functionality are well divided. Not knowing what their code looks like, I wondered how well that has been done to date.
Enough of the bitching from the
On a related note, I would suggest one more thing to those who wish to see this plan bear fruit: Reduce the dependency tree!! That will need to happen, any way you cut it. I'm sure this is possible if the developers attack it from all possible angles.
----
Not to be confused with Col.
If I want to deal with a quarter million lines of dependecy-laden code that the original developers can't make serve the purpose... I just go to the office.
Pass.
(Or is it a quarter billion LOC? I can't tell the difference anymore either...)
Good luck, though. After you turn it around, be sure and drop us a note saying how, k?
"Consider yourself a member of a virtual corporation with Mr. Torvalds as your Chief Executive Officer." - Linux Advocac
Linux needs this app, one like it, or needs Intuit's Quicken or (hee hee) MS's Money to port over, or all 4. Ayone wanna call Balmer and see if he's game?
Is the juice worth the sqeeze?
Ouch. Double ouch. I'm going to lie down now.
Everything is proprietary. Just because you can download the source code doesn't mean the code isn't proprietary. In this case, it's the property of the Free Software Foundation.
Now, if there were a truly non-proprietary alternative--public domain--that would be meaningful. Since that's not the case, you can just eat it.
GnuCash, from the begining, has suffered from a major disconnect between the developers and its (potential) users. Besides the absurd dependency problem which makes installing it nearly impossible, after six years in development, it STILL has no true online banking capability... how is this possible?
Yes, there are many barriers to implementing this capability. But the project has never given it the priority it needs (and seems to still be unlikely to... Gregoire says he will work on it "if I can just find time").
Just using Mozilla isn't good enough. Using GtkHTML makes the GUI far, far cleaner and lets us embed graphs in ways you simply can't do using Mozilla.
There are so many things wrong with the standard Quicken format that your comment is almost comical - chief amongst them being that there is no standard Quicken format. It is a complete clusterfsck, and I take my hat off the developers who managed to make head or tail of it. As for a text format, that's what XML is, and parsing it is a no-brainer in just about any language you care to name. Perhaps you'd care to write a robust parser for your wonderful error-free format?
As to the general thrust of your comments, yes, it would be nice if a few gnome libraries were merged IMHO, and in hindsight maybe Python would have been a better choice as a scripting language (not because of the merits or otherwise of Scheme - Scheme is a wonderful language) but because it would have lowered the barriers to entry for GnuCash development. But back when I was a developer, the general view was that it was our job to write software, and it was the job of distributions to package it up so that Joe Average didn't need to compile it himself. Debian always managed to make it a no-brainer install. Why can't every other friggin' distro manage it?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
// Assume I is a valid variable of type int
// Note the brilliance and nice white space.
// Problems solved!
I = 2;
I = I + I;
if(I == 4)
printf("This would solve most of my problems\n");
else
printf("I can't change the rules\n");
It is not perfect, and maintaining documentation is hard work, but compared to many other projects the GnuCash codebase is extremely clean and relatively well documented, unless it's deteriorated horribly since I last looked which I doubt.
GnuCash's user documentation has always been pretty good, though I may be biased because I had a major hand in writing the docs in 1.6. The big problem with documenting GnuCash is that most people not only need to learn how the program works, to use any accounting software they need a tutorial in accounting 101, which is not simple and varies greatly from country to country and business to business.
AFAICT the biggest issue is simply the lack of people coding on it. Maybe people get scared off by Scheme, maybe it's lack of sexiness of accounting software, maybe it's that people assumed that Gnumatic/LDG were still funding development, maybe it's just that none of the GnuCash developers (except maybe myself at the time ;) )are fame-seeking publicity hounds. In any case, here's hoping some enthusiastic newcomers will help out.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
"Sadly, this project is on a course of willful time wastage; the choice of C to implement an accounting application will consign it to the dustbin of history. I've seen the same thing happen to similar open source projects, but those who design and start open source projects (as opposed to those who stick with them and finish them) persist in their irrational devotion to C/C++ for application-level programming because it's "elite"."
What an utter load of manure. Jumbo cluebat for you. C/C++ is used for application development by both commercial and non-commercial software. It has for decades. By your silly reasoning, because someone doesn't program in your favourite language (obviously NOT C/C++), then they must be doing it to be "elite"(Godwin , could grow to understand you), and "irrational".
Seriously the "Everyone else isn't programming in the language I want them to, therefore they're wrong" attitude needs to die, NOW!
Don't let your inadequateces in dealing with C/C++ make you think others are having as rough a time.
The reason why we used the GNOME libraries is that they provide a bunch of stuff that otherwise would have to be recoded by the developers. Is that so hard to grasp? I am befuddled why anyone would develop Un*x end-user apps without taking advantage of the facilities that GNOME or KDE provide.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Problems like this is why the call for help went out.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I know no one wants to hear it, but I personally think this app is dying to be ported. I mean apache and mysql are and they're both huge successes.
Would this be the first open source windows accounting package?
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Whether GNUCash makes it or not, the community desperately needs a robust open-source accounting solution to compete with Quicken and their mafia stranglehold over the industry. Everyone I know is sick of Quicken's unethical business practices and tax-table/upgrade extortion schemes. Whoever develops a suitable alternative to Quickbooks will be a major player.
Wow, did you just think of that, all by yourself? Windows sux, har har, how original.
No, I wouldn't call an Anon. Coward a Karma Whore. That would be impossible. I think it's funny, yet sad, that moderators can't be bothered to actually read the whole post, just see that it's long, and moderate it up as informative (which, for the most part, it is, despite the stupid troll).
And please tell me, how does someone posting random interjections about Cmdrtaco's love sausage (another one I've seen) or casual sex with Cmdrtaco entice one to read the posting?
Overrated / Underrated : Moderation
That doesn't mean I don't want to help you, just not at this time.
I think GnuCash will wait until we have market share with the Mothers, Aunts, and non-computer linux users. It shouldn't die, just bide it's time. People like myself use a spreadsheet to organize our finances. You can't sell your product to me. Who is your target audience? Linux Mothers, Sisters, Brothers, Aunts?
Not yet, no way.
Lets concentrate on getting new users the ability to setup the Linux system they just purchased. GnuCash sales/support will follow later.
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
>Now it needs developer support, as its future is uncertain.
I am a fairly technical non-programmer who is new to the open source world. I read this part of the GnuCash website:
> We may be headed for a dead end if we don't reorganize
> and refocus our efforts.
I thought that open source software cannot die if enough programmers care enough about the project. What exactly does "dead end" mean, anyway?
> Of course, every project could always use more
> developers, but the consecutive demise of both Gnumatic
> and Linux Developers Group caused the loss of most of
> GnuCash's core developers two years ago
I was under the (perhaps naive?) impression that many (most) of the open source developers do this for the pure joy of creation and the satisfaction of being part of a team, rather than doing it for a paycheck. If that's correct, and the GnuCash team has lost developers and has not replaced them that suggests to me that either (a) this project is not interesting to developers or (b) something is wrong with the management of this project that is causing developers to stay away or (c) some combination of both a & b.
> GnuCash has grown too large for the current developers
> to properly debug and maintain the current code base,
> add new features and write documentation, all at the
> same time.
This seems to the support the "both a & b" theory above.
I guess my question is... why should we care?
Unlike an operating system, a webserver or a database, not many folks (in the grand scheme of things) need a double entry accounting package. I bet there are plenty of other open source projects that have failed with less fanfare. What makes this one special?
(As an aside... if you want to develop software for use by ordinary people, don't give it a name that is based on an inside joke. Self-referential acronyms are a turn-off to us non-geeks. "Apache", "Linux", "Tomcat"... these are great names.)
Sure I'll help.
If you'll pay my salary for me. No? Then nevermind, I've got some job hunting to do.
emerge gnucash
Gnucash is for people who have passed the spreadsheet level, and actually need to do accounting.
If you want to add up all your bills, and subtract the sum from your paycheck, use a spreadsheet.
If you want to enter in every ebay auction you hold, noting which ones are in-state and out-of-state for sales tax purposes, and in addition have it automatically fill out the pdf form that you have to print out and send in to the state, then you are talking about an accounting system. Of course I recommend sql-ledger over gnucash.
Once you understand the basic rules of accounting, which sound an awful lot like the laws of physics when stated thusly:
- Every transaction must be balanced; one or more accounts are debited (that is a positive number) and one or more accounts are credited (negative), with the sum of all of the debits and credits in the transaction being exactly zero.
- Therefore the sum of the entire Chart of Accounts
- Operating transactions include something from an asset or liability account and something from an income or expense account. The P/L section of the balance sheet breaks down this way:
OK, so it's not exactly Sesame Street, but the logic flows inexorably from Rule #1, and as long as you understand the math of negative numbers, you can get it.... The devil is indeed in the details, but Generally Accepted Accounting Practices aren't too difficult to grasp once you get these basics down-
Assets (positive)
- Liabilities (negative)
- Equity (negative - think of it as the liability the business has to its owner)
- Capital invested
- Accumulated earnings (from prior periods)
- Current-year Profit (negative) or Loss (positive)
= 0- Income (negative)
- Expense (positive)
but the signs are usually omitted in the P/L (when they match the normal directions indicated here) to avoid the confusion that arises from income accounts being negative (but they must be, because an income account shows where the income came from, so going back to Rule #1 the increase in an asset must correspond to an equal and opposite negative to balance it)At the end of the day, though, accounting software is simply database software to keep all the accounts straight, with some pre-built reports and forms defined for you. I wonder if GNUCash is suffering from excessive complexity from having to couple the interface (that is specific to accounting) to the back end (that could be MySQL or whatever) and make a single package out of it
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
"cash" is something individuals have. "finances/accounting" is something businesses have.
"Cash flow" is also something businesses have. See also this definition of "cash flow".
Will I retire or break 10K?
(Can't tell if that beer comment is your sig or not.)
(1) It's about MONEY, one of those fundamental things in life. As in, "follow the..."? As in, we can drop $100,000,000 on some right-wing Central American regime, but somehow, when it comes to teaching inner city adults to read and finding something for inner city teens to do besides hang out and participate in the drug industry, we're strapped for cash, so sorry, the budget has run dry? Where did it all go?
(2) A good chunk of it is written in Scheme, one of the cooler languages floating around out there. Aren't you getting tired of fiddling bits for graphics drivers and tracking down segfaults? Haven't you had enough of "swap integers X and Y w/out using a temp. variable. Hint: XOR is your friend."? Aren't you ready for a paradigm shift? Don't you remember being thrilled in the process of learning a language and all the concepts that went with it?
(2)(b) Isn't it just *insane* that a money-tracking package is written in LISP? Are you aware of some of the wacky languages high-powered financial systems are written in? (I've heard LISP, PROLOG, Smalltalk.) Is it possible that somebody knows something you don't?
I'm tellin' ya, if I didn't have three kids, a full-time job and a wife who's constantly riding my case to get off the computer, I'd be all over this.
Speaking of wife... imagine being able to point to the expense tracker and say, "See? My car does *not* cost too much to maintain, neither."
John.
Why don't we have GnuCash selling licenses to those who actually need and are willing to pay for it?
Given the GNU GPL, I assume that the "licenses" you refer to are licenses to call tech support as opposed to licenses to obtain and use the program. I'm assuming that the GnuCash team doesn't sell tech support contracts because they would have a hard time setting up the business, attracting employees to do the job, etc.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Why doesn't the creator of GNUCash or someone else post precompiled binaries? Or at least mirror the dependencies so you don't have to hunt all over the web for them?
It makes no sense to just throw out source code and then expect people to use the product.
If he's looking for money, here's a nutty idea, he could sell a cd-rom ($5 to $10) with the precompiled working distribution with all needed dependencies with the source code as well to satisfy all the legal stuff.
It's cheap enough to burn, copy and distribute CDrs.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Not only could I find nothing about it on the GnuCash site, a search of the same turned up nothing. Face it, this is an app that is poorly designed (Linux users should be insulted they're the target of this mess) and will not work on any reasonable desktop system it is intended for. That is, this is something made for Linux users who must suffer with no alternatives, not for Mac or Windows users who can spend a couple hundred on an existing app that actually works with their system and gets things done. The target market is the (financial) desktop, but the project completely neglects that Linux has no real inroads into that market. Hell, one look at their listed Software Requirements and it's pretty clear they don't have this thing targeted for any common desktop system, Linux or otherwise, let alone Mac OS X. This seems like a project that is best off left to die so that someone who knows what they're doing can sweep up the fractured remains and make something useful out of it.
Sure, everything is proprietary in a sense, but some works are proprietary in a way that does not hinder the public from using and improving the software. These programs are called "free software".
Will I retire or break 10K?
Only a complete fucking idiot would devote hgis time working for free and then complain when there are no software jobs in industry. /. 15 year old loser) will see this for what it is. THE TRUTH!!
Yeah yeah yeah, mod me a troll. Whatever.
Maybe someone who considers their time to be valuable (i.e. not the usual
Title should have been Gnucash: A call for RealCash
I'm not an expert on the GPL, so I don't know if this idea is feasible: Could the core GNUcash developers fork the codebase, focus their development efforts on the fork, and charge money for it? (Thus allowing them, hopefully, to hire some help and pay themselves.) Of course, since the new fork would be a derivative of a GPL-codebase, it too would be GPL'ed. But couldn't the developers sell their new and improved--and supported--version? Does the GPL require that you release changes to a codebase immediately, or only ensure that the source code is available to its (paying) users?
It sounds like there is not enough interest in the project to get voluntary developer support. So, presumably, the free, original version of GNUcash would stagnate (it would not be able to keep up with the commercial version); the paid-for version would eventually become so much better that it would be worth buying.
Is it a violation of the GPL to make the source code available only to paying customers?
Why learn to use a real accounting program which can print useable reports for your tax preparer when you can use Quicken or Money that let you create "money" from nowhere?
It's truly amazing to me that people can't see that MSMoney is a flaming piece of dog crap. Sure, I went from that to GnuCash an it took me a couple of days to figure out how to set up my accounts properly. But then again, I've never taken an accounting class. Ever. Which says something good for the interface and backend logic of GnuCash IMO.
I run my business with GnuCash and I can create customers, jobs, invoices, and all with *proper* accounts receivable and payable accounts that track payments in to an sales account and my bank account. All reconciled perfectly, just like my tax preparer likes it.
If you aren't running a business and find it too cumbersome then maybe try another solution, but don't say it's crap or too hard to understand. It's all about the right tool for the job.
And since I'm up here on this box I might as well address all this bitching about dependancy hell; have any of you tried building ANY application on Linux, ever? If you expect to build a application that is this complex without having to satisfy some dependencies you are insane or worse. Keep in mind people, we aren't clicking "install.exe" here, we ARE COMPILING FROM SOURCE CODE. It's not intended to be "Point and Click Easy". Find an RPM, in fact, here you go -> RPMfind.com
I for one say hats off to the GnuCash developers. When I first started using it I had some ideas for modifications and I got in touch immediately with the developer working on that section of the app and had a nice conversation about what was currently planned and what was possible right then.
GnuCash is a great open source success story, and I for one will be lurking on the user mailing list looking for ways to help.
1400x1250 in a 640x480 world...
However the business logic and reporting is written in Guile. This in turn is based directly on Scheme, to quote the home page:
This is an incredibally powerful language, but it isn't easy to get into for dabblers. I understand its advantages over Tcl, but not so much over other more recent languages such as Perl or Python.The thing is that when you work with this kind of program, you need to implement the objects in something that is fast, however the upper layers need to be at a higher level so this approach works well.
See my journal, I write things there
The form of accounting is relatively standard througout the world and GNUCash tries to provide standard schemes of accounts for many countries. However even these could do with better commentary along the lines of QuickBooks.
See my journal, I write things there
OK, that got me curious; what are you refering to?
The trouble with account software is that it's too restrictive. Generally you can tailor it to do specific tasks like balance a check book or do taxes, but trying to make a program that can tie all this together and fit any and all critera is setting yourself up for failure.
After all we(*nix users) already have the most widly used and effective peice of accounting software that also is used by the vast majority of proffessional accountants everywere:
SPREADSHEETS.
That's it folks, that's mostly what the big dogs use.
If there are no brain cells yet left to fry, doth the owner not fall quiet?
obviously not
The German banks use an online banking protocol (yes, a *protocol* -- not only a file format) that is publicly available, called HBCI (HomeBanking Computer Interface). Guess what? It's already implemented in Gnucash through the OpenHBCI library. I can download transaction statements *and* make online money transfers right from inside Gnucash now.
Point is, online banking (just as the bank systems in general) is totally country-dependent, which limits both your developer and your user base. For countries which fortunately have some openly available standard it is possible to implement this in an OpenSource project.
Ssh! Don't tell them they're being so badly exploited by being "forced" to create OSS!
:)
They might not even care!
PS: If your sarcasm software is on the fritz, please gain a clue by application of an appropriately wielded 2x4 or whatever.
If someone goes through all the bother of putting together (ie:programming) a fairly complete software package and then decides to GPL it or make it OSS, it'd be fairly dense to think they'd be silly enough to miss one of the most obvious points of OSS or the GPL and the purpose behind it, no?
Strangely enough, the only people getting worked up by the cries of "Oppressor!" were the ones doing the shouting... even among the amused "victims".
Anyone tried Kapital from theKompany?
Fran
:):):)
1st 1st Poster of the new Millennium!
I have been looking at SQL Ledger for some time which seems to be very good indeed. Most of the other accounting packages I've seent (open source ones) are not well designed. I tried to get GnuCash running but without success. I'd happily try again though. Has anyone else any recomendations?
Has anyone experienced this before?
... could get them one coder for one year, full time or 2 for 6 months, or something like that.
I am sure many coders don't code because they have to choose between altruism and paying the bills.
Perhaps it is time to realize that freedom does not come cheap and we have to pay for it.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
What's this?
:-) - but it will remain to be known as the Gimp of accounting. Maybe a refactoring into C++/Qt/KDE is a feasable solution to developement problems just now? Dunno...
GnuCash is something like the Gimp of Accounting, no? Well, check this out: Gimp isn't that good either and I'd guess spare time OOS programmers are even less into Accounting than they have affinity with Pixelgrafix. On top of that, from what I've heard - this is only hear and say no real first hand data on my part so correct me if I'm wrong - the whole GnuCash thing has some downsides. User and developer wise.
It's accient in terms of softwaretechnology, it's one weedy mess of homegrown APIs with a little helding of oldskool-supergeek Scheme on top. (smartass)Yeah, great.(/smartass). It has something like 60 dependencies - so I've heard - and thus I won't dare 'apt-get install gnucash' to test it lest my HDD be flooded with something of 50 MB of 'libgnucash-grmblfrk.1.43.32-34.43.so.3.4.2.1' and so forth. Especially (here it comes) not if it is *not* cream of the crops in accounting and doesn't do anything that I can't do better with scalc, a handfull of scripts and a my bank's webinterface. I'll probably even be faster into real timesaveing money/tax fuss automation. Or at least I'll gain skill in scalc and scripting that I'll be able to use somewhere else to.
On the other hand it's a project, damn it. Not more and not less. And if it's worth it's cake as an OSS project and still is manageble it will live. Not as fast and furious as supersexy KDE Karamba - hey, it's a goddamn accounting(!!) programm
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Measuring the importance and 'size' of a project in 'lines of code' is so silly that I have a hard time reading past paragraph 1 and taking that call for help for granted.
Do yourself a favour and cut the bullshit and go right to the facts. If you want help for your baby you should be a little more modest on that part. I'd say OSS developers know very well for themselves what projects are 'big' and 'important'.
Just my 2 Eurocents. Good luck.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
.... because the expectations were unrealistically high before.
Most companies happily use free software to implement productive *internal* applications, that is where more development work has always been found.
I consider my time valuable, give away as much as I can to the proponents of FLOSS and make a living out of it. Maybe you should question the entreprenurial capacity of some people and not a model to produce software that has probed is perfectly good to enable people to earn a living.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Simple
- Derwen
http://fsfeurope.org/
u gotta laugh at the Gnome/KDE/etc wars. Get your act together and standardize if you ever want to overtake the Redmond Devils.
One web, One program, One fuhrer?
For some reason, americans (I assume you are american - you sound like one) like monopolies, like Microsoft or the old Soviet Union. Most of the rest of the world actually considers free market and competition a good thing.
Let's replace a few words:
"But many people have said [that] Linux is NOT a replacement for a desktop operating system, thus Linux does not satisfy the home user or the business user's needs. And look how many years it's taken already. I say move on and write a new program."
I say eat it. I took accounting in school, I keep track of every last cent that passes through my life, and GNUcash is excellent. It took maybe 30 minutes to get started, and several more to figure out split transactions, but that was definitely worth it. Yes, there are areas that could use improvement, but saying "I don't like it, my friends say it's bad, start over" is idiotic.
[On a side note, it's a major failing of the educational system in the US that NOTHING is taught about budgets, finances, etc. in grade school. At least the importance of keeping records should be impressed. GNUcash, a program that keeps track of things correctly, should be much more popular.]
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
Maybe things have changed, but I tried to install GnuCash 4 years ago on a brand-spankin' new Linux box, running the freshest RedHat available.
The dependencies were still bad, requiring upgrades of most (guile, etc). I worked on this for three nights and finally threw up my hands, and kept going with Quicken. This is the one of the 3-4 times in 15 years of development and sysadmin work that I've given up on a piece of software (other had to do with installs on AIX).
Like I said, things may have changed, but I don't really care to find out.
BTW j'suis d'nationalite canadienne francaise, et ces billots j'les ai coupes a la sueur de mes deux pieds dans le terre glaise.
Slashdot entertains. Windows pays the mortgage.
Well, we have GnuCash here that is in danger here and it has no way of exporting your data. Now there is a scary thought.
One thing I have to say is that the most important feature for me in a financial app is cross platform use. Because of that, I chose to spend money on Moneydance. It's written in Java and has great support. I run it on my Mac at home on both my Windows and Linux partitions on my laptop.
If you prefer to go the free software route, there is jGnash, whch will also run on various OSes, becuase it's also written in Java.
GnuCash is good product, but it has way too many dependancies and relies way to heavily on Gnome. Because of that, it can't be ported to Windows of MacOS X, even though there are native GTK libraries for both those environments. Perhaps the GnuCash team should focus on making a really good accounting engine and allow others to wrap GUIs of any kind around them.
A personal financial app is very important to the Linux desktop. I think it's far too important for the application to be in jeapordy of disappearing. Perhaps someone like Ximian should add this to their list of software, or the FSF should turn around and get some people coding full time on this with a grant.
All GnuCash needs is a "not free" plugin to make it compliant to Enron Math
Sounds like Windows isn't the only place you run into "DLL Hell"...
---- It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again. It does this whenever it's told.
If I could do balance forecasting (ideally using formula-based templates), I could ditch my spreadsheets.
I'd be using quicken but the version I've got doesn't support this either...
The SCO lawsuit makes me wish my company were in Utah. We need a new building.
> From the article: Quickly implement a Wiki or similar system... This will allow us to have an effective place to point users on gnucash-users and #gnucash instead of writing the same answers over and over again. It will also allow us to document bugs/workarounds for specific versions.
Wikis are not a good substitute for centrally-maintained user documentation! Wikis are based on the infamous "sandbox" model where everyone drops off their crap and the readers have to sort through the mess. Wikis usually contain unclear, incomplete, incorrect, duplicate, off-topic, and contradictory information.
Please don't do this, your users deserve better. Please use volunteers who centrally maintain the documentation, like you do with the code.
All this time, and still no online checking/bill payment?
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
I was a GnuCash developer a couple of years ago, I haven't contributed since then. Given the call to arms, I may go back and help if I get the time (thesis...)
Now to your question. The front end and backend are severable. The architecture is not ideal, by any means, but it is quite feasible to add a different frontend - in the past, there was a Motif frontend, for instance.
The problem is that the GnuCash GUI is an inherently complex beast, so writing a new frontend is a very substantial task. As I have said, as GnuCash runs fine on any desktop provided you've got the right libraries installed, the core developers decided that working on new stuff was far more important than duplicating the interface.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
"Perhaps the GNUcash people could set up a pledge system where a bunch of folks can promise to pay some money"
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Why would they promise to pay money, by using money that already promises to pay lawful money (silver/gold) and doesn't actualy pay lawful money? Why not just give the GnuCash developers some blank paper and a color printer so they can "configure; make GnuCash" ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H money themselves? Or, let us look at why we are stuck with only "promises to pay", or shall we say "promissory notes" and yet we find ourselves today having to promise to pay eachother a promise to pay lawful money?
From the google'd cache of
a http://chansen.tzo.com resource, I bring you:
Money; In usual and ordinary acceptation it means coins and paper currency used as circulating medium of exchange, and does not embrace notes, bonds, evidences of debt, or other personal or real estate. Lane v. Railey, 280 Ky. 319, 133 S. W.2d 74, 79, 81.
And in conclusion of the previous google'd cache that hath exhibited 'Money', I bring you another supreme resource
"ESR sang bass, Linus sang tennor, RMS and the GNU/hippies joined right in there...singing seemed to help the GPL trolls! One of these days and it won't be long, I'll rejoin them in a song. I'll rejoin the Unix circle at the thrown! Oh the circle...won't be broken! By and by, Lord, by and by..."
I almost never touch the category pane... they auto-fill. I type He[tab] and GC fills in Hess / Auto:Gas / and the amount of my last transaction, selected so I can change it.
I recommend the GnuCash people raise themselves some money using the donation scheme worked out by affero.net. Affero receives credit card donations and charges a 6% handling fee.
There are surely several paid careers just waiting to be staffed by businesses that need competent support and feature implementation of the GnuCash system.
GnuCash installs perfectly under Red Hat, and I sympathize with the reports of dependency hell. I suffer the same hell trying to get back my Lyx and SciPy system.
Inelegant as it may sound, I suggest the GnuCash people package up an all dependencies resolved static package. There are too many reports of agony on this comment board to ignore. Like Lyx, the package is struggling from several angles, one problem is the disappointed victims of dependency hell.
I have explored going back to Jr. College to get an accounting certificate so I would have educational credentials to accompany a modest retirement career setting up GnuCash systems for small businesses.
I had this sort of thing setup for a while...
Windows ran a cygwin session in which I started an SSH connection to a debian server and exported the display to my win/cygwin machine and then ran KDE3 and cygwin off debian. It was on a K6-2 350 MHz debian machine and unexplainably fast.
This was surprisingly usable until I broke something... hehe Now I can't seem to export the display properly.
After reading the other guys post, it doesn't sound like a direct port to Windows would be practical or even feasable.
It almost sounds like GnuCash needs to be "ported" to linux first using some friendlier programming techniques.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
It wasn't well-documented, but it worked OK (that may have changed since I ceased actively contributing to the project, BTW). If it's still imperfectly documented, that might be a more manageable task for you.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Scheme isn't exactly my forte, but I'll look into it. Thanks for patiently answering my questions.
Okay. I understand all that. Once I finally "got" it, I decided this was the last finance program I'd ever use. But the equations don't always balance.
I buy 100 shares of FOO at $1. My assets in my brokerage account increase by $100. At the same time, my checking account (also an asset) drops by $100. Net change = 0.
FOO doubles in value. My net assets is suddenly up by $100, and there is no corresponding decrease anywhere else. What is the correct method of handling this? Something is wrong here, because in GnuCash, it causes the sums of all balances to become non-zero.
BTW, mordez-moi, grenouille.