[linas@linas.org: Re: Will GnuCash ever work for me?]

[Linas Vepstas]

Ooops, re-copy the mailing lists.

----- Forwarded message from Linas Vepstas <linas@linas.org> -----

To: Derek Martin <ddm@pizzashack.org>
Cc: Derek Neighbors <derek@gnue.org>,
	Bill Gribble <grib@linuxdevel.com>, Linas Vepstas <linas@linas.org>,
	Dave Peticolas <dave@krondo.com>, jcater@gnue.org, jamest@gnue.org
Subject: Re: Will GnuCash ever work for me?
From: linas@linas.org (Linas Vepstas)

On Fri, Sep 21, 2001 at 03:19:34PM -0400, Derek Martin was heard to remark:
> 
> My post went entirely unanswered, but Linas responded to essentially
> that point in yet another e-mail from someone else on how difficult it
> is to obtain binaries of GnuCash which work with their distribution.
> He said something about how commercial software developers (i.e. in
> the Microsoft world) begin to develop software for new versions of the
> operating system they are developing for before those versions are
> released.  He made a comment to the effect that Windows XP software is
> in development now, so that it will be available when XP is released.
> He also likened GnuCash's development to this process, indicating that
> when (for example) the next version of Mandrake is released, the
> latest GnuCash will work well with it.
> 
> This overlooks one major serious flaw in the analogy.  When software
> developers in the Windows world develop software for the latest
> soon-to-be-released version of Windows, they similtaneously make
> certain that it works with the current version of Windows, and in the
> overwhelming vast majority of cases, with all previous versions of
> Windows, as well.  

What you are not seeing is how proprietary software actually works.
Its not 'the smae software' on all these different platforms.  Its
actually different branches of the source tree.   Code written for 
win98 will not run on win95 without tweaks, and code written for 
win95 SE will not run on win95 P2, and so on.  All thse different
versions of win95 are not compatible, and software developers have to
keep seperate trees for each.

> GnuCash developers, and many many free software
> developers in general, quite often overlook that.

I beleive you are overlooking the fact that gnucash-1.2 works fine
on almost all distros, as does gnucash-1.4.  That's because the distros
have 'caught up to' where gnucash-1.4 was at, and so its not such a pain
anymore.

Again, the proprietary development process doesn't really differ from 
the open source process, its just that its carefully hidden from you,
the consumer.  The same old shit still goes on.

> I switched away from Windows (in part) because of the upgrade
> treadmill.  While most new software worked on older releases, 

Speaking as a software developer, it is quite unpleasent having to
support old platforms for new code.   Its like trying to build a
race-car, while being compatible with the Ford Model T suspension
and the and engine bolt-holes suitable for a flathead.  

> For a long time, I only upgraded my Linux system because I WANTED to,
> not because it was necessary.  With the advent of Gnome though, that's
> become a lot less true.  Because people who develop Gnome apps keep
> their Gnome installs up-to-the-minute updated, it's pretty much
> impossible (in my experience) to get newer Gnome apps to work with
> older versions of Gnome.  There has been no eye on backward
> compatibility whatsoever.

Gnome is not mature enough for the kind of stability you want.  Its
changing because its under construction.  You're living in a house where 
the construction workers come in every day to work.  Until they are done
building, they won't give you much sympathy.  Why do you want to live in
a house that's constantly changing? I dunno, maybe someone told you that
'gnome was done'. But its not.

The situation with gnonme today is not much different than that with
Motif in the early 90's, or X10/X11 in the late 80's.  Many apps written 
for X10 didn't run on X11.  Its growing pains.

> Agreed.  In general, I think the GNU project itself has done a pretty
> good job, with Gnome being an exception.  

That's because the rest of the gnu project codes to the specs for 
the C programming languge (the gcc compiler, the C library).  These
are pretty stagnant thigs.  The POSIX spec is not changing every few 
months.

By contrast, gnome doesn't even have a spec or a standards body. It
won't, for at least a few more years or longer. 

> And the rest of the free
> software world is fairly pitiful wrt project management, releases, and
> compatibility.

Again, its redhat & suse & freinds that provide the above.  Again, 
in the proprietary world, the developers are also writing code fast and
loose, you just don't see it, because its hidden.  When the developers
get done, the project managers and the release managers take over, and
they get thier todies to fix the bugs, and make the changes needed for
compatibility, etc.  But the developers run screaming from this process,
they hate it, they despise it, they'll do almost anything to skip
the meetings,  they'd rather skip a promotion than take a transfer to a
department that does release management.  I've seen it happen over &
over, within IBM, within Microsoft, within SGI.  Its a highly stratified
society, and the programmers want nothing to do with project management. 

The project managers have to hire stable, level-headed, responsible 
drones who are either unimaginative, or just don't have what it takes to
be a code monkey, and prefer to spend thier days tweaking bugs and
testing compatibility.  Its a different class of people.   These
level-headed, down-to-earth types are not usually drawn to neat, new 
whiz-bang ideas like Linux.  

--linas

-- 
pub  1024D/01045933 2001-02-01 Linas Vepstas (Labas!) <linas@linas.org>
     Key fingerprint = 8305 2521 6000 0B5E 8984  3F54 64A9 9A82 0104 5933

----- End forwarded message -----

-- 
pub  1024D/01045933 2001-02-01 Linas Vepstas (Labas!) <linas@linas.org>
     Key fingerprint = 8305 2521 6000 0B5E 8984  3F54 64A9 9A82 0104 5933