Robert Merkel answers questions on /. but leaves me with 1

Bill Gribble grib@linuxdevel.com
Thu, 5 Jul 2001 17:41:29 -0500


On Thu, Jul 05, 2001 at 03:25:44PM -0400, Paul Lussier wrote:
> Slashdot has posted answers to questions about GnuCash posed last 
> week.  In one his answers, Robert states:
> 
> 	Gnumatic sponsored GnuCash development for about a year. Like
> 	a lot of other small companies, Gnumatic got in financial
> 	trouble during the Bust. Thanks to the GPL, the work done on
> 	GnuCash during 2000 was not lost, and the developers were able
> 	to start a new company (LDG) to continue the work.

Actually, I wrote that.  The answers were sort of collaborative.

I bear neither Linas nor Gnumatic ill will, but I'm tired of dodging
questions like yours because I think that answering truthfully will
make Linas mad.  I don't want to have a lengthy discussion about this
whole subject (it's pretty painful) but I feel like the Gnucash
community shouldn't be kept in the dark.

Gnumatic was founded in (I believe) Feb 2000 as a partnership between
Linas Vepstas and Linux Global Partners.  Linas is really the only one
that can speak to its current status and goals.  I started working for
Gnumatic in about March 2000 and left in May 2001.

Gnumatic was in financial trouble from late 2000 on because LGP didn't
come through with all the money they promised. People weren't getting
paid, hadn't been paid for a while, and there were no prospects of
them getting paid any time soon.  The staff was incredibly patient
through a long period of working without pay while waiting for the
money that LGP continually promised was right around the corner.

I was able to raise enough money privately to make a serious offer to
buy the company.  I incorporated Linux Developers Group to be the
"instrument" through which the purchase would be made, planning to
continue to operate under the name Gnumatic after the dust settled.
Unfortunately, LGP wasn't really interested in my offer, and the
attempt to buy Gnumatic fell through.

At that time, I left my job at Gnumatic in order to devote my time to
starting up the new company as a real going concern.  The remaining
development staff of Gnumatic also left their jobs and joined me,
except for Linas, who stayed as Gnumatic's CEO and only employee.

Linux Developers Group employees will continue to work on Gnucash and
related projects indefinitely.  We want to use the Gnucash source code
as a toolset for custom financial software for small business and
e-commerce.  This means we will probably focus work on more
business-related features in the near term.  However, personal users
should not be concerned; a change that will probably be made soon will
be to break gnucash up into "modules" that can be loaded or not if you
don't need the functionality, so you won't have to load up a lot of
business features if you don't want them.
 
We will be releasing Gnucash on CD within the next several months, but
there will probably not be an extensive support program and we will be
selling through limited channels (probably one on-line vendor plus
possible direct sales through our website).

I hope this answers your questions.

Thanks,
Bill Gribble