[GNC] Temporary Website URL

Brad Morrison bradmorrison at sonic.net
Sun Mar 26 22:11:01 EDT 2023 

Ken: I just tried all 3 of your GnuCash links/URLs below and they are 
now all working well for me. Many thanks to whoever is responsible for 
fixing them!

Robert: thank you for diving deeper into how certificates work and how 
the "Apache2 Ubuntu Default Page" error likely resulted from the 
configuration error in January, which then led to the Let's Encrypt 
certificate to not renew automatically.

David & Murugan: I had to look up the meaning of the word "parochial" in 
the context that David was using it in - yes, my friend/acquaintance 
does have a very narrow and rigid view of risk, which leads to his 
narrow view of the risks of open source software. In his defense, I will 
say that some people in open source communities may not realize how 
common it is for people outside of the open source realm to be very 
hesitant about using open source software. I have encountered this 
attitude a lot from various lawyers and business people with the primary 
reason being financial risk & responsibility. If an open source software 
is responsible for an error that results in damages, many decision 
makers want to be able to hold someone financially responsible for that 
mistake and recoup their losses. That hesitancy can easily shift to 
distrust if something confirms the existing bias against trying open 
source software, such as a website being down for about 2 months (from 
mid-January when the config error was noticed, until mid-March when it 
was fixed).

Please do not misunderstand me - I am not trying to assign blame to 
anyone and I write this because I care. As David mentioned, outages 
happen to all websites from time to time, including major commercial 
platforms. However, I also do not think it is wise to call this a blip 
either - I have never heard of any major commercial website going down 
for 2 months, much less a major platform like Twitter or Facebook. 
Accessibility/attention is where those platforms get so much of their 
power from, heads would roll if Facebook or Twitter went down for 2 
months and a workaround had to be created and used.

My friend/acquaintance and everyone else that uses the internet uses 
open source software. But there is a big difference between developers 
choosing to use open source software and users choosing to use open 
source software. Professional bookkeepers are not software engineers, 
the CPAs that I work with are not software engineers, lawyers are not 
software engineers - to expect any other professionals to use a tool 
that they are not familiar with takes some motivation on the part of the 
user. Whether that motivation is philosophical, political, financial, or 
practical - any change takes motivation. Hopefully what I just wrote 
does not sound too obvious, but the point is that it is hard to ask 
someone to use a product that they are not familiar with, are hesitant 
about to begin with and then send them a link that doesn't work.

My primary goal with GnuCash is to increase adoption among professional 
bookkeepers in the US. Now that the GnuCash websites are working again, 
I can get back to trying to do that.

Brad

On 3/19/23 10:36, Murugan Muruganandam wrote:
> Brad
> i agree with David, the website issue was an blip which was solved using a work around and am sure the team is working to restore the certificate.
> On the statement from your acquaintance that he does not use open source is quite a stretch, on top of my mind Linux , am very sure his website or his database is running on Linux.
> I would strongly recommend that your acquaintance take a look into GNUCash software and share is frank opinion about the merits and de merits.  this software was built solely on comments and requests from people.
>
>
>
>
> Saludos Cordiales
>
>
> Murugan
>
> ________________________________
> From: gnucash-user<gnucash-user-bounces+m.muruganandam=hotmail.com at gnucash.org>  on behalf of David T. via gnucash-user<gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
> Sent: Sunday, March 19, 2023 3:05 AM
> To: Robert Heller<heller at deepsoft.com>
> Cc: David Reiser via gnucash-user<gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
> Subject: Re: [GNC] Temporary Website URL
>
> Brad,
>
> I just want to note that your acquaintance has a remarkably parochial attitude about software. GnuCash has been available and actively developed for something like 25 years.
>
> It seems to me that in this era of "big data," those commercial companies are more interested in the customer as a source of data mining income than as a partner using their software.
>
> *And* outages with major commercial platforms (Twitter, Facebook?) underscore that it is not just open source projects that fail sometimes.
>
> David T.
>
>
>
> On Mar 18, 2023, 4:21 PM, at 4:21 PM, Robert Heller<heller at deepsoft.com>  wrote:
>> At Sat, 18 Mar 2023 06:04:52 -0700 Brad Morrison
>> <bradmorrison at sonic.net>  wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks for point these situations out Ken! The reason I joined the
>>> GnuCash-User mailing lists was because I sent a link to an
>> acquaintance
>>> that does bookkeeping professionally and he texted back that the
>> website
>>> was down, he then did a Google search and tried the GnuCash result on
>>> his own and that link didn't work either, and he then goes on to tell
>> me
>>> that this is why he doesn't trust open source projects with his
>> business
>>> or his clients' business. It was pretty embarrassing for me and I
>> have
>>> hesitated to refer any possibly interested professionals that I meet
>> to
>>> GnuCash since.
>>>
>>> I can confirm the certificate error for website #1. It looks like
>>> gnucash.org uses Let's Encrypt (https://letsencrypt.org/) as the
>>> certificate authority and the certificate was valid from December 12,
>>> 2022 until March 11, 2023. My understanding was that Let's Encrypt
>> was
>>> free, so that might mean that it just has to be
>> renewed/reauthorized...?
>>
>> Let's Encrypt uses a program "certbot" which is supposed to
>> automagically
>> renew the certificate.  It does try to verify the domain it is for by
>> visiting
>> the website.  Since there was a webserver config problem (the redirect
>> config
>> was broken), it is likely that the automagical renewal failed...
>>
>>> I can confirm that website #2 still lists the "Apache2 Ubuntu Default
>>> Page" error for the non-https/secure gnucash website. I believe that
>>> John mentioned that Linas upgraded his server in January and that
>> broke
>>> this feature and it has not been fixed since.
>>>
>> Yes, this webserver config error needs to be fixed.  Once it is fixed,
>> the
>> Let's Encrypt certbot program will be able to renew the certificate,
>> which
>> will fix thehttps://www.gnucash.org  error.
>>
>>> I also see Gnucash website #3 as working well. I can see that that
>>> website also uses Let's Encrypt as the certificate authority and that
>>> certificate is valid from March 5, 2023 until June 3, 2023.
>>>
>>> I also noticed that website #1 & #2 has 2 "Subject Alt Names"
>>> (gnucash.org &www.gnucash.org)<http://www.gnucash.org)>  on that certificate, while website #3
>>> has just 1 (code.gnucash.org).
>> Yes, this is a "normal" thing.  Almost allwww.xxx.yyy<http://www.xxx.yyy>  hostnames refer
>> to the
>> same logical host as xxx.yyy -- eg while commonly normal websites start
>> with
>> www, most also work without the 'www.'.
>>
>>> After briefly reading a few of the mailing list messages on US
>>> banks/credit unions that are not allowing their transaction to be
>>> downloaded/available in an open format, I have also wanted to start
>>> emailing various financial institutions about whether they intend to
>>> make such a format available. I would still need to further review
>> the
>>> formatting situation described in the email chains before I start
>> asking
>>> around and then opening an account at such a financial institution,
>> but
>>> if the main GnuCash website still doesn't work, it is hard to write
>> such
>>> emails at all.
>>>
>>> Brad
>>>
>>>
>>> On 3/17/23 11:00, Ken Pyzik wrote:
>>>> So checking websites statuses today:
>>>>
>>>> https://www.gnucash.org   - privacy/certificate error
>>>> http://www.gnucash.org   - Default appache2 page
>>>> https://code.gnucash.org/website   - working perfectly.
>>>>
>>>> As noted - this has been an issue since 11 February.  The https://
>> was working at one point a couple of weeks ago -- but now it is not.
>>>> FYI -- Ken
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From:
>> gnucash-user<gnucash-user-bounces+pyz01=outlook.com at gnucash.org>   On
>> Behalf Of John Ralls
>>>> Sent: Sunday, February 19, 2023 3:40 PM
>>>> To:gnucash-announce at lists.gnucash.org
>>>> Cc: gnucash-devel<gnucash-devel at gnucash.org>; Gnucash
>> Users<gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
>>>> Subject: [GNC] Temporary Website URL
>>>>
>>>> As most everyone already knowswww.gnucash.org  has been offline
>> since 11 February because Linas Vepstas lost internet access and his
>> ISP, Grande Networks in Austin, TX, has not fixed it.
>>>> To provide replacement service until Linas gets back online we've
>> set up an alternate site,https://code.gnucash.org/website/.
>>>> Regards,
>>>> John Ralls
>>>>
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>> --
>> Robert Heller             -- Cell: 413-658-7953 GV: 978-633-5364
>> Deepwoods Software        -- Custom Software Services
>> http://www.deepsoft.com/   -- Linux Administration Services
>> heller at deepsoft.com        -- Webhosting Services
>>
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