gnucash and gnome

[Derek Atkins]

Hi,

Quoting Steve Brenneis <stevebrenneis at yahoo.com>:

[snip]
> It is stated that plenty of KDE users use gnucash just fine. Well I 
> guess that's true, except that they have to install gnome first. And 
> this isn't just a little bit of gnome. The package list to install 
> and use gnome as my desktop isn't much longer.

GnuCash has no dependencies on the desktop you run.  HOWEVER, the
GnuCash developers chose to use the Gimp ToolKit (GTK) and associated
support libraries in order to build GnuCash.  This does make it pull
in a bunch of the same dependencies that a Gnome desktop would already
have, but again, GnuCash itself does not depend on your RUNNING a
Gnome desktop.  However you still need those libraries.  This will
not change.

> It is also stated that the gnucash developers' time is better spent 
> developing gnucash than in developing print libraries, graphing 
> libraries, and HTML renderers. All true and an admirable goal. As a 
> 35 year IT professional, I couldn't agree more. However, what the 
> developers have done, by selecting a particular desktop environment, 
> is offloaded the responsibility for these things to their end users. 
> In doing so, gnucash has contributed to the "geek factor" of Linux 
> and has thrown more flammables on the desktop holy wars. I'm sure 
> that was not the desire of the gnucash team.

"port install gnucash" will automagically pull it all in.  If you
don't like that, well, your loss.  It has nothing to do with geek
factor.  indeed, this is exactly what package managers are for, so
you don't have to think about it.  It will pull in all the dependencies
for you.

Are you worried about disk space?  Disk is cheap
Are you worried about the time it would take to build the dependencies?
Use a distro that comes with pre-built packages like any non-geek would!
Are you worried about the time it will take to download the deps?
Load them from the distro DVD, as most distros provide GnuCash.

So I'm not sure what you're complaining about, unless you're just complaining
because you want to complain... in which case I suggest you take it to
/dev/null.

> Since I try never to complain without providing a constructive 
> suggestion, I would offer that what the gnucash team should do is to 
> identify those functions that directly depend on gnome and create an 
> abstraction layer from those requirements. Then the end user can feel 
> free to use whichever desktop they have selected without having to 
> install 75% of the one they didn't select. That leaves gnucash out of 
> the desktop debate and opens its use up to whole groups of new users, 
> like me, who won't be able to use it because they don't want to have 
> to install gnome on their KDE system.

You don't need to install gnome.  You just need some common libraries,
like glib, gtk, etc.  Are you willing to devote the several man-years
of effort to add this level of abstraction?  Are you willing to stick around
for the next decade and support it?

> I'm going to check back from time to time to see if the dependency on 
> gnome has been eliminated or reduced to an acceptable point. I would 
> love to use gnucash and contribute to its success story. Until then, 
> I guess it's Microsoft and Intuit for the time being. Bleh!

Have fun.  I don't see this changing at all.

I'll note that GnuCash DID have multiple UIs at one point; there
was a Motif UI and a Gtk UI..  But the developers at the time found
that it was way too much work to maintain two sets of UIs.  But you're
asking for even more than that!  You're asking for not only two sets of
UIs but also two sets of underlying SUPPORT libraries (printing,
graphing, report-display, etc).   In other words, you're asking for
duplication of about 60% of the gnucash code base.   That's just
completely unreasonable.  You might as well just go ahead and write
a new program.  There's just no way you could rip out glib/gobject;
it's just too ingrained deep into the bowels of every level of the
program...  And LOOK!  glib is a GNOME LIBRARY.   Ooops!  There goes
your clean system, you just dirtied it with that ucky gnome lib.

So pardon me while I go off in a corner and laugh really hard at you.
The FAQ is there for a reason. [*]

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-derek

[*] Significant financial backing not-withstanding, of course.

-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord at MIT.EDU                        PGP key available