Getting money for Gnucash development [was Re: Newbie migration issues]

[TC]

> It's years since I've used Quicken, but it never handled double-entry 
> accounting when I used it.

To all intents and purposes, Quicken does double entry.  It's true that 
you can have a transaction in which you don't supply the destination 
account (although Quicken refers to expense and income "accounts" as 
"categories").  But in that case Quicken simply posts that transaction 
to an "Uncategorized" category.  AFAIK, you cannot "unbalance" Quicken, 
and that's the key point.

> From the user perspective, Quicken is more friendly because it (when I last 
> used it) was dumbing down the whole process. That, unfortunately, does NOT 
> help the user understand the system any better, making migration more 
> difficult. It's only a weak form of lock-in but it hinders the migration of a 
> very large number of potential users.

Quicken can handle the vast majority of even the most sophisticated home 
user's needs.  True, it doesn't treat the user like an accountant.  IMO, 
that's a feature, not a bug.

> There is a big 
> gap between cheapo Quicken and mega-deal Sage (in the UK at least).

Quicken doesn't compete with Sage; Quickbooks does, for SMEs at least. 
I've used both.  Sage is, or was, in my opinion, the second worst piece 
of software on planet earth.  Its circa 2000 interface was brain dead. 
My own experience was that it *could* get itself unbalanced, but I 
originally assumed that I was using it wrong (although, I'd have thought 
that a user should not be able to unbalance an accounting tool). 
However, then three accountants I know all told me I was right, and that 
they too felt it is (or was) possible to produce an unbalanced balance 
sheet. It was absolute p*sh. It is one of the prime examples I use to 
explain how a turd of a product can become widely used through excellent 
marketing.

It is popular in the UK only because it is being endorsed by a group of 
people, the vast majority of whom wouldn't know a good program if it 
smacked them on the head with a large paddle labelled "This Is A Good 
Program" - accountants.

>>[And it's no use me answering - I can't program for toffee;
> 
> 
> You can write an email, you can help with the documentation.
> 
> You are on the list, you can help answer some queries to take some load off 
> Derek. Don't say you can't be involved - everyone can be involved - so start 
> at home!
> :-)

Hey, but I took the time to initiate this thread didn't I :-).
Besides, I'm an engineering professional so while I don't program much, 
I know what it takes to get a significant piece of engineering moving. 
Having lots of people to answer questions and fix doc bugs, while 
useful, is barely going to scratch the surface.  What's required are 
more man-hours hitting the code.

tc