[rms at gnu.org: Some problems on gnucash.org]

[Linas Vepstas]

Hi,

I responded at length in the last note, but thought to recap very 
breifly here.

On Thu, Aug 10, 2006 at 02:41:07PM -0400, Chris Shoemaker wrote:
> any "This is GNU software" statement certainly casts doubt in my mind,

Up to about 1999/2000, I personally wrote about 80%-90% of all of the 
code in GnuCash. At that point, employees of Gnumatic (of which I
was CEO) stepped in, and the lines-of-code count doubled or tripled.

> the fact, given that copyright was not being assigned to FSF.

All Gnumatic employees who were coders filled out an 
assignment-of-copyright form to FSF, before Gnumaic dissolved.

This implies that of all the code in GnuCash, as of mid-2000,
about 90%-95% of it was originated by people who had signed FSF 
assignments.

> I think what he wrote was true.

? Who is "he"? and what did "he" write that might be untrue?

> (unless we're all
> mistaken and GnuCash really is a GNU Package, in which case serious
> clarification is appropriate.)

Technically, GnuCash is a GNU Package, as explained in detail in
the last email.  This does not mean that the Gnu Project provided
either money or manpower, or even disk space, or CVS or a bug tracker
or even a web server space. In fact, it provided none of these things.
(Or rather, GunCash did not make use of Savanah).

The only thing that Gnu provided was the GPL license, and the
promise to promote GnuCash as the "official" GNU accounting solution.
In return, GnuCsh promises to use phrases like "Free Software",
and to honour feature requests coming from FSF/Gnu for feature
requests, collaboration requests, and requests to answer questions
about financial software.

I would love to build a similar bridge with Gnome, which has long
had the habit of treating GnuCash as an un-important, third-tier
non-member of the Gnome Project. Despite the fact that I was there
to help found the Gnome Foundation, and despite my trying to 
promote GnuCash within the Gnome desktop project. 

--linas