[GNC] balance of interests between users and developers

[Wm]

I think the balance between users of gnc and developers of gnc has 
broken down.

My personal instinct is inclined towards development, towards software 
getting better, being more inclusive, making things easier, you get the 
drift.

Unfortunately it seems some personal projects got in the way of making 
gnc 5 better for everyone.

The most obvious interaction fail is transaction completion which should 
have been an improvement but has ended up as an "I'm right, you are all 
wrong" issue :(
see 798829 – 5.0 transaction completion features are buggy (gnucash.org) 
<https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=798829#c21> for details :(

For small organizations / charitable organizations / whatever they are 
in your locale, v5 broke reporting in a significant way.
see 798809 – Multicolumn report error when reopened after saving. 
(gnucash.org) <https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=798809>
why? because preparing a standard set of reports is what is expected of 
small businesses, etc
it is understood, pretty much in every jurisdiction, that you start with 
last year's balance sheet, you add in the income statement for the last 
year and present this year's balance sheet
we call this accounting
we call this reporting
it is "where we were", "what happened", "where we are"

Unfortunately, gnc5 *BROKE* the reporting mechanism that was working before.

In fact, it is sufficiently broken that gnc5 CAN NOT BE USED for any set 
of accounts if a *single* date or *single* account needs to be changed.

Basically, if you have organised a good set of accounts, carefully put 
them together and saved them,  YOU ARE *insert your worst word*.  It is 
that bad.

Fun fact? The people that broke this don't seem concerned.



-- 
Wm ...