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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."
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.
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
GnuCash is a full-fleged dual entry accounting system: you can run your business accounting with it.
Quicken and Money are not: they are just good for keeping track of your personal bank accounts.
The bold text above may not mean anything to you, and it meant nothing to me until about a year ago when I started learning some accounting stuff. I don't know why accounting is so excruciatingly painful to learn for us developers... but once you finally get it, you realize that it is actually not that complicated, and why it simply works. Now, while I'm still a developer and not an accountant, even for my personal finance, I will not do without dual entry. I tried Kmymoney and Microsoft Money, but they just don't cut it. Now I can't live without GnuCash.
Please, do not let GnuCash die. If you can help that project, by all means, please do.
I code, therefore I am.
your confused though, GNUcash really isn't supposed to be a personal finance app. It's supposed to be for accounting. This isn't a quicken/ms money replacement, this is a Quickbooks/peachtree replacement.
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.
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Not to be confused with Col.