Getting money for Gnucash development [was Re: Newbie migration

[Robert Heller]

  TC <tc at emailetc.co.uk>,
  In a message on Sun, 30 Jan 2005 01:16:49 -0600, wrote :

T>  > I also have no idea how to counteract the FUD of moving away from
T> > Quicken.
T> 
T> Actually, when I think about it, it's not really FUD that's the issue. 
T> Quicken is simply a Very Good application.
T> 
T> Mozilla, especially in the form of Firefox and Thunderbird, really does 
T> offer something (e.g. security) that is lacking in the equivalent MS 
T> offering.  But Gnucash doesn't, I think, have the same differentiator 
T> w.r.t. Quicken.
T> 
T> What Gnucash *does* provide is a quality finance package for GNU/Linux.
T> 
T> Which also means that the lack of a Windows port is not relevant.  If 
T> having a certain number of users was necessary to make obtaining 
T> sufficient funding possible, then I reckon it is, for all practical 
T> purposes, *GNU/Linux* users that matter.
T> 
T> But maybe all of this is conceding too much ground.  Perhaps the trick 
T> here is not to get money to allow the existing developers to go full 
T> time.  Instead, perhaps it is to figure out why there aren't more 
T> non-full-time developers. I'm basing this on the hypothesis that even if 
T> Mozilla didn't have funding, it would still have a lot of developers. 
T> Surely the linux kernel shows that serious unfunded development is possible?
T> 
T> And I would have thought that if a young coder, with spare time on 
T> his/her hands, wanted to hack on some worthwhile and valued OSS project, 
T> a Quicken-for-Linux would be one of the top three projects (the other 
T> two being the kernel itself, and something like Chandler).
T> 
T> So, how come it doesn't?

I expect that GnuCash is not 'sexy' enough for many 'young' programmers.
There are lots of other projects that have attracted many 'young'
programmers.  

T> 
T> [And it's no use me answering - I can't program for toffee; that's why 
T> I'm not involved.  And by the looks of things, helping out in something 
T> like Gnucash requires serious ability, or time to acquire it. But what 
T> about those who *can* already code?]

There are other things that can be done -- one of the problems with
many OSS projects is *documentation* and end-user testing.  And maybe
things like promotion -- if/when you encounter them, 'talking' to 'young
(Linux) coders' about GnuCash would likely help too.  GnuCash for the
most part has had a very low profile -- maybe that needs to change. 
Getting the word out will help.  Certainly increasing the GnuCash user base
amongst Linux users in general will help too -- I wonder how many 
Linux users/programmers are balancing their checkbooks *by hand* or have
dual boot machines, with Quicken or MS Money, *out of ignorance*?

T> 
T> tc
T> _______________________________________________
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T> gnucash-user at gnucash.org
T> https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user
T> 
T>                                                        

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