Privacy and passwords

[Ian Lewis]

2008/3/5, Keith A. Milner <kamilner at superlative.org>:
>
> For a start, with all software development there is a need to sort the
> wheat
> from the chaff and to prioritise features. In my experience, a large
> number
> of users concerns and wishes are chaff. Often they are poorly developed
> ideas, impractical, low-priority, or niche requirements. Sometimes they
> are
> simply "a bad idea".


Point taken.  I simply don't want gnucash to be one of those projects where
if you aren't a developer your concerns and wishes are automatically sorted
as chaff. Practically speaking, it may end up that way but I wish developers
would approach open source with a less self-serving manner. At least we
should be polite when refusing to implement features.

> Popularity has the side effect of attracting more interest and more/better
> > developers and
> > more/better users.
>
> That's true to an extent, but just because one person likes to "pitch" his
> view by saying that it will make the product more popular, that doesn't
> make
> it true. In reality there is no evidence to support the view that adding
> password support to Gnucash will suddenly make it more popular and will
> attract new contributors. My personal view is it would make no difference
> at
> all.


True, but this particular feature is implemented elsewhere (with perhaps
varying levels of security) and has been requested and asked about a number
of times. I am not clamoring for it either but I think it's a feature that
would make gnucash more popular. That's not to say it should be implemented
without going all the way and implementing proper (read secure) encryption
(if practically possible given where development of gnucash's backend is
going).

Also, one feature isn't going to instantly make gnucash a lot more popular
but a richer set of features would.

> That said, currently this feature just requires a developer to have
> > time/expertise to implement it. The coversation should basically end
> there.
>
> And motivation. Motivation is the biggie.


Right. I forgot that one ;)

I don't see the motivation here, so it's not going to happen. The OP could
> change of that, of course, if he feels it's really that important and
> that's
> the beauty of Open Source.


I hope he does.

Ian