Maybe a table or db would help

[Steve Murphy]

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I've been getting the gnucash-devel and -user mailing lists, and I can't
begin to number of letters that start with "I have finally been able to
compile and run gnucash", and having gone thru the experience myself.
(Isn't there a notice in the README?)

I've got an idea that might help.

What if there was a database, by which users could report their
experiences, and share with others? From this table, users can prepare
their configurations for compile, and developers can refine the
configure script to enforce the proper environment, because as I see it,
the main reason people have trouble building gnucash is because they
have the "wrong" versions of the required libraries, either too recent
or too old.

The table may need to be 3 or 4 dimensional.

Dimension 1. All the packages that gnucash uses, with their several
extent versions each.

Dimension 2. gnucash version

Dimension 3. OS/ platform

Dimension 4. ? some other relevent factor ?

Each time a user successfully puts together a compiled, linked, running
gnucash, they should update the table with their config. At each slot,
perhaps these conditions might be set:  count of success; count of
failure, whether this a "Suggested" configuration.

While building the package, the users may find that with their current
version of package "X" (you name it), they don't link, so they upgrade
that package to the latest. THen they are OK. They should increment the
fail count for the version of "X" they had that didn't link, and
increment the count for the package that did, for the gnucash/OS
versions they are using.

Developers can use the database then to update the configure script and
have it prevent the users from compiling versions with package versions
that are sure to cause problems.

There has to be some way to get a handle this compatibility issue.

murf


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