From:	 grib@linuxdevel.com (Bill Gribble)
To:	 Jonathan Corbet <lwn@lwn.net>
Subject: Gnucash coverage
Date:	 Wed, 20 Jun 2001 15:10:53 -0500

As a Gnucash developer, I was mortified to see that the lead story for
the June 13 issue of LWN used Gnucash as a poster child for the issue
of excessive library dependencies in Linux applications.  However, it
wasn't just Jon Corbet who had problems installing the 1.6.0 release
of Gnucash.  Our mailing lists are full of people with similar
problems and complaints.  We've been helping them individually, but I
think it's important that we address these concerns publically.

Gnucash 1.6.0 uses Gnome 1.4, and I don't believe any apology for that
is either necessary or forthcoming.  Our users demanded new features,
and when we can either (a) pick them up for free from Gnome,
contributing patches back where necessary, or (b) reinvent the wheel,
there's not really a choice.  Without Gnome 1.4 we would not have been
able to add the features our users demanded: the XML file format,
graphs and charts, sophisticated usage of HTML for reports, the help
system, and (coming soon) interactive Web services and online banking.

That said, I think I can speak for the Gnucash developers in
apologizing for the trouble people have had with the installation.  It
has never been our goal to make people's lives harder.  The biggest
single problem we have had so far is that the initial RPMs we
generated wouldn't install on a Red Hat 7 system with Ximian Gnome
(due to a Guile version conflict).  That was unintentional, and it's
been fixed now.. the new RPMs can be downloaded from the
pub/gnucash/redhat-7-guile-1-4 directory on ftp.gnucash.org.

I strongly disagree with the LWN article's implication that a large
number of library dependencies implies an unstable or brittle system.
With even a moderately intelligent packaging system (such as Debian's
dpkg or Red Hat's rpm) the packaging managers for each particular
distribution can ensure that only compatible libraries are installed,
and that the installation of libraries needed by an application
doesn't cause problems for other applications.  I know that there are
flaws in the way the RPM system handles library versions, and that
flaws in RPM affect a very large number of Linux users.  However, you
shouldn't assume that just because one popular tool is broken right
now that the problem is impossible to solve.  Debian addressed the
library version problem, and the problem of installing additional
software for a desired application, some time ago and I am confident
that Red Hat can do the same with RPM.

The Linux Developers Group (http://www.linuxdevel.com), which employs
many of the core Gnucash developers, is in the process of putting
together the release of a CD version of Gnucash 1.6 that will contain
all of the bits necessary to make Gnucash work smoothly on a variety
of platforms.  If you wish to support future development of home and
business versions of Gnucash, purchasing this CD will be a dandy way
to do that.

Thanks,
Bill Gribble                             grib@linuxdevel.com
Linux Developers Group, Inc.             http://www.linuxdevel.com