GNUCash Financial Contribution

BenoitGrégoire bock at step.polymtl.ca
Thu Aug 14 12:53:38 CDT 2003



----------  Forwarded Message  ----------

Subject: Re: GNUCash Contribution
Date: Thursday 14 August 2003 11:04
From: Joel Burton <joel at joelburton.com>
To: Benoit Grégoire <bock at step.polymtl.ca>

On Thu, 2003-08-14 at 01:03, Benoit Grégoire wrote:
> Having said that, and since 1000USD is a sizeable contribution, here's what
> I think you can do to really help the project.  The first option is what I
> think is best.
>
> Option 1:
>
> Finance a single developer to speed up work on what you want, which is
> basically your original idea.  Paying for work to be done in the future is
> fair to all, and doesn't require us to assess the "worth" of past
> contribution (only to vouch that the chosen developer is competent).  It's
> also a good example to give to other potential financial backers.
>
> I spoke to Matthew Vanecek and he is interested.  Other developers have the
> skills to do it, but as he is the one currently working on the postgress
> rewrite and he does data modeling for a living he seems the logical choice
> . I verified that he could promise that it would indeed speed up this part
> of the project.  He says that he would definitely devote considerable time
> to popping out a viable SQL backend for that price.
>
> I don't think due to the scope of the work and the amount of money involved
> that you could really agree on a deliverable, so this would be a good
> faith, best effort thing.  Off course the two of you are free to make
> whatever agreement you think is appropriate.
>
> Option 2:
>
> -Finance a gnucash developer get-together in Boston.  With 1000$ and
> planing in advance we could probably manage to pay the plane tickets of all
> the developers in North America  who are not within driving distance of
> Boston. Face to face communication would most definitely help in doing some
> real design and planing for gnucash, and clarify a lot of obscure areas. 
> Also, most of us have never met, and this would no doubt be really fun for
> all involved.  If this is what you decide to do, we will need a custodian
> for the money.  The logical person is Linas Vepstas.  He's been with the
> project almost since the beginning and has become active again lately.

Thanks, Benoit, for the suggestions. I like them both, really. ;)

I've worked on software projs (open source & otherwise) where our f2f
meetings were very helpful, and I'd be happy to help the gc developers
get together. If 1000USD won't let in North America everyone meet, I can
probably cover the difference--Linas and I could figure that out.

On the other hand, funding (part of) a good new feature is a Good Thing.
Particularly w/backend storage, since it makes gc much more transparent
for other things, like (in my future dreams) having my zope intranet
show my clients their current invoices, etc., by hooking directly into
the sql db of biz data. [yes, I'm sure I could do that now by going into
your xml directly; the point is simply that I think many related-proj
devels could/would use your data in an sql format but might not dig into
an xml format.]

Why don't we see if the devels want to get together? Or have other
ideas?

> > And what else can I do? I am particular expert in PostgreSQL, so it's
> > possible that I could help with the SQL storage stuff.
>
> Well, you could help Matthew test what he writes... :)

I'd love to!

> [re: Mandrake installation]
>
> I use Mandrake for development.  I don't think funding in this area is
> necessary.  All we need is someone who maintains a virgin 9.1 system to
> build the RPM (mine tend to drift towards cooker).  It may even be me, as
> I'm about to install 9.1 on my laptop (and keep it virgin)as there is no
> point in having cooker on that machine).  But hey, if you want to finance
> me to do that, who am I to complain.

The problem is that there's so much good stuff on Cooker that it's hard
to resist. Good luck resisting tempation on your laptop. ;)

> P.S.:  For the sake of transparency, do you mind if I also send this
> message to gnucash-devel?

No, of course. Please feel free to so, and with this message as well (I
would cc this message directly, but am not a member of that list, and
also think it will be more clear if you send the original first w/any
cover you want).

-------------------------------------------------------

-- 
Benoit Grégoire
http://step.polymtl.ca/~bock/



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