Support for casual users (was: Re: client-server)

[David Merrill]

On Fri, Dec 29, 2000 at 02:12:07PM +1100, Robert Graham Merkel wrote:
> Eugene Tyurin writes:
>  > 
> <snip>
>  > Is  this  really something  a  casual  user  who  wants to  balance  his
>  > checkbook and know how much he spends on beer can bear?
> 
> Unless it's totally transparent to them, no.  Basically, it may be
> that GnuCash, in the long term, has to split into two seperate products
> (still sharing large amounts of code and developers), one aimed at
> business users and supporting database backends and such complexities,
> and one aimed at home users and not involving them.  
> 
> Rest assured none of us wants to disenfranchise the single home user.

I know that you mean this sincerely. But we really do need to define
the overall goal/scope of the project. Much has been implied but
fairly little has been actually laid out.

1. Are we going to continue support for the local file store?

2. Are we going to attempt to be an enterprise system?

3. Are we going to attempt to be a small business accounting package?

4. How scalable do we really need to be?

5. How can we carefully modularize the application so that we fit the
needs of both home and business users without making as many
"compromises"?

I would love to see a Free enterprise package, but I don't see how
gnucash can be both that and a home user package at the same time. My
vote, and I think yours as well(?), is to always put the home and
small business user first. Hopefully, gnue will fill the high end.

-- 
Dr. David C. Merrill                     http://www.lupercalia.net
Linux Documentation Project                dmerrill@lupercalia.net
Collection Editor & Coordinator            http://www.linuxdoc.org
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