How safe is GnuCash?

Geert Janssens geert.gnucash at kobaltwit.be
Thu Jan 12 04:29:09 EST 2017


Op woensdag 11 januari 2017 18:14:01 CET schreef Mike or Penny Novack:
> On 1/11/2017 2:10 PM, 70147persson at telia.com wrote:
> > An already written and accepted notation can never be changed in such
> > a program, but substituted with the correct one next to the original.
> > Moreover there are log files, protected with checksums, where all
> > transactions are noted.
> 
> You are treating "the program" (call it program X) as if it were
> inviolable. As if there could not be another program (call it program
> X1) which is just like program X EXCEPT it will allow that violation.
> With a closed source program, not easy to produce X1, but I will tell
> you that I have disassembled machine code in my day (perfectly legal, it
> was my own company's source code that had gotten lost). But gnucash is
> OPEN SOURCE. Just need ordinary programmer skills to do it. That's why
> the developers didn't bother putting in something that LOOKS as if it
> were protecting the books from alteration but in reality, doesn't <<
> after all, THEY certainly have the skills to create X1 >>

Please be careful when putting words in someone else's mouth :)

It's certainly true that it's very easy to create an X1 variant of gnucash 
with its sources freely available to anyone.

However as a developer I will tell you that I never *deliberately* chose not 
to implement audit trail features or alteration protection. And I guess this 
goes for the other developers as well although I will let them speak for 
themselves if they wish to.
Still speaking for myself these features are simply not on my priority list 
even though I understand the lack thereof makes gnucash unsuitable for certain 
environments (like restrictive jurisdictions).

It may well be someone in the future does find this important enough to spend 
time and effort to implement to 'a reasonable degree' (I understand very well 
this can never be 'perfect'). As a matter of fact there is even a feature 
already to make historical data read only. While not exactly what the original 
poster asked for, it's already a move in the requested direction.

Regards,

Geert


More information about the gnucash-user mailing list