Vista (progress? estimate?)

[Mike or Penny Novack]

I need to do some organizational planning but I am posting this here 
rather than the "user" list because of the nature of parts of this question.

Problem statement --- I am currently the Treasurer for a 501c3 but next 
year will have to take at least a one year hiatus (term limit bylaw). 
Which means I have to be able to turn this over to somebody else. I have 
the organizational books up under GnuCash and would like them to be able 
to remain under GnuCash. Currently running on our PERSONAL computer but 
that's part of the problem for turnover. There is a time limit issue on 
getting a reimbursement for the organizational computer lost in the fire.

1) What is the current "Vista" situation? If GnuCash still isn't Vista 
ready, anybody willing to give a time estimate on when they think the 
problem will have been solved? Please, I am not intending this as 
holding anybody's feet to the fire or hanging them for a bad guess -- I 
used to do this for a living and know how "deliverable" dates slip OR 
what gets delivered actually missing pieces. But I need a "guesstimate" 
in order to make other choices.

2) What is driving this is another time limit -- one involving 
reimbursement (replacement) insurance for what was lost in the fire. 
There are naturally some constraints (besides cost) but essentially I 
can buy an approximately ~550* device for ~150 (the already received 
"depreciated current value" of the destroyed device). The sad realities 
are......
  a) Nobody is very willing to house an extra desktop. They will want it 
on a laptop.
  b) There is ONE other director who would be willing to run Linux. I 
just can't make "use something other than Windows" a requirement for 
running for Treasurer.
  c) I can get a refurbished laptop under XP with adequate "modern 
hardware" to possibly be able to justify the decision. You need to 
understand that the problem is at
      this "cost" my choices in new laptops running XP is very limited. 
Remember -- for the rest of the board (minus one other person besides 
myself) the "politics" of "free         software" irrelevant AND the 
cost issue not as relevant (Intuit won't -- but many vendors charge 
non-profits less and/or agencies give grants for purposes like "all 
directors get the same version of MS Office").

     The point here is that I don't want to wage a fight that I don't 
have to (justify why I got a refurbished laptop rather than a new one 
for the same price!). I can hold off on action six months at least. 
That's why I am asking for a prediction. I also face the potential 
problem of my replacement NOT wanting a dedicated device but asking me 
to install GnuCash on their device. So we aren't talking about date when 
"buildable" on Vista but availability of a stable release.

Michael

* allowed to spend more -- essentially for any replacement device bought 
costing that mush or more get the maximum reimbursement of 400 so only 
paying cost-400 for the device

-- 
There is no possibility of social justice on a dead planet except the equality of the grave.