g-wrap lost - So am I

[Conrad Canterford]

On Thu, 2002-09-26 at 17:50, David Tangye wrote:
> The point raised above touches on a very very important 
> point that techies in IT companies often do not realise the importance 
> of. Specifically, unless an app like Gnucash is made an utter no-brainer 
> to install, with auto-options for us great herd of plebs who do not wish 
> to know the details but rather insist that it either loads with a click 
> or it gets chucked in the bin, then that app will never make it into 
> mainstream.

And a growing problem seems to be that the great herd of plebs seem to
think that linux should be just-like-windows-only-costs-nothing. Like
everything else in this world, you should expect to get precisely what
you paid for and nothing else. You want gnucash to be installed and run
on your system without you having to lift a finger? Go pay someone to
build and install it for you. I'm sure there are people around who'd do
this for $50 or less. Still a lot cheaper then buying packaged windows
software.

Let me just remind people that gnucash has been made into what it is
today by the hard work (and yes, it has been an *awful* lot of hard
work) of volunteers giving up time with friends and family in order to
write code. Most of them have never been paid for that work, and will
never be paid for that work except by the gratitude of you, the users of
what they have built.

If you don't like what you see, don't complain about it - offer to help.
Even the simple act of using the software, and making a suggestion of
"Wouldn't it be better if we did this ....?" contributes to the future
development in a positive way.  

> I want an accounts package. I want to bung it on and drive it. I WILL
> NOT spend time fiddling around trying to get it onboard. I just do not
> have time nor inclination. I will stay with MYOB under Windoze instead
> even though I hate it, because its there and it works (plus anyway it
> sounds from this list that gnucash still is VERY basic in function and
> way off a Quickbooks/MYOB).

If that is your attitude, then I suggest that you're on the right track.
Gnucash is not an MYOB or Quickbooks. It quite probably will be able to
do the same sorts of things eventually, but unless you know someone with
a few hundred thousand dollars to spare so the developers could quit
their real jobs to work on gnucash full-time, its going to take a few
years to get there. As it is, I run my business accounting in gnucash.
Its not got all the features, but its good enough to do most things, and
the rest can be fudged.

If you're interested, gnucash 1.8 (intended for release around
christmas, if everything goes to plan), will have Accounts Payable and
Accounts Receivable in it, as well as scheduled transactions.

> I just upgraded to RedHat 7.3 and still gnucash does not work.

Are you using the gnucash binary that shipped with RH7.3? If so, each
and every single dependency for that binary is on the CD. I know, I
installed my gnucash from those CDs. It works.

> I check
> their website. A whole web page of stuff (dependencies) is needed and
> they expect me to hunt for the stuff that is missing and install them.
<snipped>
> I need the
> gnucash rpm to just grab the relevant dependent packages and bung them
> onboard. I do not even want to know about it.

This is a problem with the rpm format, and nothing to do with gnucash.
If it irritates you that much, change to debian. The debian packaging
system will get all the dependencies and install them for you. Of
course, then you'll be faced with even more choices and other problems.
Better yet, volunteer to help with the development of some of the tools
being made to try and overcome this problem.

> Get the idea?

No.

Conrad.
-- 
Conrad Canterford  (conrad@mail.watersprite.com.au)
Water Sprite Pty Ltd   |  url - http://www.watersprite.com.au/
GPO Box 355,           |  - Australian Tour and Event Management (ATEM)
Canberra, ACT 2601     |  - Ticketing Division.
Mobile: +61 402 697054 |  - Catering Services Division.