Privacy and passwords

[Keith A. Milner]

On Wednesday 05 March 2008 11:15:26 Ian Lewis wrote:
> 2008/3/3, Andrew Sackville-West <andrew at swclan.homelinux.org>:
> > as a fringe developer on this project, I don't give a rat's ass whether
> > gnucash becomes mainstream or not. I work on this project because I
> > use this software.

<SNIP>

> I agree with the conclusion but not the reasons. The beneficial part of
> open source software is that the users needs are addressed about the needs
> of the "entity" (usually a company) developing the software. Developing
> software where only developers can benefit because only developers concerns
> as users get addressed seems backwards in my opinion. I think that users
> concerns are valid even if they are not the developer's concerns.

Yes and no. 

For a start, with all software development there is a need to sort the wheat 
from the chaff and to prioritise features. In my experience, a large number 
of users concerns and wishes are chaff. Often they are poorly developed 
ideas, impractical, low-priority, or niche requirements. Sometimes they are 
simply "a bad idea".

The bottom line is not every users view can be accommodated, especially when 
there is conflicting views on whether the feature is worthwhile or not.

Then there is the question of motivation. Andrew has quite succintly pointed 
out his motivation, and I suspect that's shared with many other devs on most 
other Open Source software projects. The reality is things like Gnucash are 
good because the devs requirements gel nicely with our own requirements. 
Basically we are riding on their coat-tails (and I, for one, appreciate 
that).

Often devs will make concessions to others whilst developing a feature, 
because they know with some more careful design, or a bit of extra coding 
effort they can make the feature more accessible. Some devs are more invested 
in "the product" and are willing to make enhancements purely because they are 
popular, but there's no mandate on them to do this. They do it from the 
goodness of their hearts.

This is all about motivation. As I read it the current devs are not motivated 
to make this particular change. Either they don't believe it's a worthwhile 
feature, or it's low priority, or whatever. I see nothing in the OP's 
argument that is likely to change that motivation.

In the user community that exists around Gnucash, this is a niche requirement 
and it can join the list with all the other niche requirements that are 
unlikely to ever get developed with the current dev team, unless the 
motivation can be garnered to build this enhancement.

> Popularity has the side effect of attracting more interest and more/better
> developers and
> more/better users.
>

That's true to an extent, but just because one person likes to "pitch" his 
view by saying that it will make the product more popular, that doesn't make 
it true. In reality there is no evidence to support the view that adding 
password support to Gnucash will suddenly make it more popular and will 
attract new contributors. My personal view is it would make no difference at 
all.

> That said, currently this feature just requires a developer to have
> time/expertise to implement it. The coversation should basically end there.

And motivation. Motivation is the biggie.

I don't see the motivation here, so it's not going to happen. The OP could 
change of that, of course, if he feels it's really that important and that's 
the beauty of Open Source.

Cheers,

-- 
Keith A. Milner