gnucash and gnome

[Peter Eldorson]

Just to wade into the debate:
Apparently I'm one of the few answering Steve's email who operates from 
a Mac platform. I'm also in complete agreement with him.

My original version of GC was 1.8 downloaded using the Fink installer. I 
tried upgrading to 2.0 through Fink, but I'm nowhere near sophisticated 
enough to manage all the stable/unstable release issues, installation 
errors and other programmer sludge that occurred so I never got the 2.0 
release operational. Instead I abandoned Fink and tried MacPorts. 
Eventually, after over 2 months of playing with editors that I didn't 
think I would ever need to learn,  and hours of downloading I got a GC 
2.0 operational. It runs on a vestigial Gnome desktop on a Mac... is 
anyone surprised?

So then I tried upgrading to GC 2.2 using MacPorts. That was last fall 
(October 2007). After going through another whole round of upgrading and 
downloading, as near as I can figure there is still a conflict between 
something called slib, guile, and half a dozen other dependencies. 
Starting GC 2.2 resulted in a system hang that has been described by 
several others on this list. No one apparently offered a solution and 
the MacPorts guys list simply said that there wasn't a maintainer. And 
one poster said I should try reloading the unstable versions from Fink 
again. So I and probably everyone else with a MacOS has given up on GC.

But Surprise again... I work in a Windows environment at my office. We 
can't install or use applications that are not 'authorized' so I 
downloaded Portable apps to a Western Digital portable harddrive.  They 
all run fine from a USB port. This week I noticed that there was a GC 
version available so I installed it. Wow. No problems! No programmer 
sludge! No issues! And the program initiated without hanging the system! 
Imagine, it took a Windows environment to show the great open sourcers 
how to "get 'er dun".

So like Steve, I want to use GC, and it's latest upgrade because it is 
superior, even in an older version, to Intuit. But I have a Mac I want 
to use for my personal and business finances, but I can't because the 
'geek' crowd have no interest in my problems. And the only solution 
offered is to use the Windows environment GC.

If you think about this for one second you'll see how truly ironic this 
is : t hat the only really useful version of a great Open Source program 
is written for the operating system that the Open Source community was 
fundamentally started for in the first place!

Thank you Steve for pointing this out. And I too wish to send my 
congratulations to all the wonderful Gnucash volunteers!

Any chance I'll see a version of GC that downloads, installs and runs 
cleanly on a MacOS in the future? What version number would that be? 4.0?

Peter


Steve Brenneis wrote:
> Folks,
>
> I'm sure you've heard much of this before, but I thought I would throw in my $0.02.
>
> I run a small business and was looking forward to using gnucash. I use Gentoo Linux for most of my server and laptop applications. Using portage, I checked out what would be necessary to put gnucash on my laptop. That's when the fun began. I am a KDE user, so I'm sure you know what's coming. The list of packages needed to install gnucash looks like this:
>
> gnome-base/libglade-2.6.2
> gnome-base/orbit-2.14.12
> x11-themes/gnome-icon-theme-2.20.0
> gnome-base/gnome-keyring-2.20.3
> gnome-base/gail-1.20.2
> gnome-base/libgnomeprint-2.18.4
> app-text/rarian-0.6.0-r1
> gnome-base/gnome-common-2.20.0
> net-misc/neon-0.26.4
> app-text/iso-codes-1.5
> x11-libs/libwnck-2.20.3
> dev-scheme/guile-1.8.3-r2
> net-libs/libsoup-2.2.104
> dev-scheme/slib-3.1.5-r1
> gnome-extra/libgsf-1.14.7
> app-text/docbook-xml-dtd-4.1.2-r6
> app-text/gnome-doc-utils-0.12.1
> net-libs/xulrunner-1.8.1.13
> gnome-base/gconf-2.20.1-r1
> gnome-base/libgnomecanvas-2.20.1.1
> gnome-base/libbonobo-2.20.4
> app-text/scrollkeeper-9999
> x11-libs/libsexy-0.1.11
> x11-libs/goffice-0.6.1
> x11-misc/notification-daemon-0.3.7
> gnome-base/libgnomeprintui-2.18.2
> x11-libs/libnotify-0.4.4
> gnome-base/gnome-vfs-2.20.1-r1
> gnome-base/libgnome-2.20.1.1
> gnome-base/libbonoboui-2.20.0
> gnome-base/libgnomeui-2.20.1.1
> gnome-base/gnome-mount-0.6
> gnome-extra/gtkhtml-3.16.3
> gnome-extra/yelp-2.20.0
> app-doc/gnucash-docs-2.2.0
> app-office/gnucash-2.2.3
>
> And that's without the HBCI or OFX extensions.
>
> I read the FAQ on why gnucash depends on gnome and two things struck me.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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!
>
> Thanks,
>
> Steve Brenneis
> Managing Partner
> Atlantic Coast Online Productions, LLC
>  
>        
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