I wondered if there was any movement towards accounts software under Linux or is the whole country under the thrall of Bill Gates?
John Collins
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I did actually start writing it...
... about 18 months ago
I created a MySQL Database and wrote some modules to copy all the Sage data to it which I got working.
I wrote some interface modules for updating Customers and Suppliers and some transaction reporting modules.
I was going to do the reporting by generating HTML and having every total a link which you could click on in your browser and be taken to a further report breaking down that total - like Quickbooks - but using your browser (with passwords of course) instead.
It even provides for Multicurrency which is more than Sage can do.
I had the idea of integrating it with OpenOffice so that you could do the invoices and such with that and have the accounts posted for you.
The only reasons I didn't finish it were (a) pressure of other work and (b) I thought someone else I know was going to do it first.
He did produce a very good Open Source payroll incorporating some of my software with HMRC-approved fully automatic EOY filing (which is more than Sage or anyone else can do).
So as it happens I was just looking at it. I had a play with GnuCash but it doesn't have proper reporting and it puts the whole lot in a massive XML file. And of course it doesn't understand VAT (not that anyone else does I know). Odd penny VAT rounding is a nightmare with it too.
I'll try and find time to finish mine off later this year.
Take this off line?
Chaps,
I too have modules defined (in firebird/postgresql) and am looking at integrating with a web based CRM system that is already written (PHP/postgresql) and in use.
We should take this one off line as I'm not sure AWEB is the right forum.
If you want more details mail me - martyn dot shiner at severndelta dot co dot uk.
M
Neil - you working on somethig?
Neil,
Just re-read your comment. The wink suggests you are working on something. If so, care to share?
M
SQL-Ledger
www.sql-ledger.org
www.tiny-accounting.org
and you never know something else might pop up soon ;-)
NeilW
Anybody out there on AWEB want to revisit an OS accounting solut
Anybody out there on AWEB want to revisit a Free/Open Source accounting solution?
We talked about it 5 years ago and nothing happened. Still don't see too much out there that is UK biased and wondered if anybody is interested.
M
John, Colin, Jay, Neil et al
I've been watching this thread develop with some interest, but been too busy elsewhere to intervene. Colin Stickland beat me to it with the revelation about Aw.co.uk and Linux. In the interest of complete openness and transparency, I belive our accounts system is Coda, running under Unix.
But don't let that deter your quest. If you search on AccountingWEB for "Linux", you should uncover articles mentioning Linux accounting applicaitons from Maconomy, Hansa and Accpac. These are big, serious developers who feel it is worth supporting an open source, non-MS operating system. If I'm not mistaken, IBM and "New" HP (including Compaq) are also keen.
Good luch with your hunt.
Linux and accounting systems
I am a new user to Linux as I wished to have server software which was not constantly being changed for changes sake rather than a gradual improvement. Linux offers this option.
Incidently viruses are written for Windoze so to avoid them use another OS.
I feel a project to write an accounting system could start with SQL Ledger or equivalent.
I would be happy to join in with any project.
The big question is which type of software is needed.
AWEB community software project.
Well I would be happy to collabarate on such a software project. I'm a long time Linux user and professional software developer, however I must admit I know next to nothing about accounting software.
The Perl rapid prototype idea is a very good one, but might I suggest gtk-perl as an alternative to Tk as the interface toolkit?
Glade will generate GTK+ interfaces with perl bindings ready for you to fill in the application logic. And GTK+ is a pretty widely accepted look and feel in the linux desktop area these days.
One proviso, however I would be unwilling to contribute to a project unless it was licensed under some widely accepted Free( as in Open Source ) license such as BSD or GPL.
Geography might be a problem..
For a physical meeting. Maybe we should set up a mailing list or a new AccountingWEB topic to hammer out some finer details ?
Licensing issues.
Well for this particular developer the license would be a crucial factor in deciding whether or not to contribute or not.
Not only are my politics very strongly in line with the Free Software movement but there are also contractual concerns for some of us such as employer liability and copyright assumptions.
I am a firm believer in the potential superiority of Free (as in speech , not beer) software and the community support infrastructure model. Its a commonly observed fact that for many software vendors patches, bugfixes and updates make it to market far slower than their equivalent open source alternatives would have, often in extremely critical areas such as security.
With regards to warranties, most commercial software does come with a click through licence that removes vendor liability ( MS Office et al ) Also note that a huge amount of the internet infrastructure is currently running on such "warranty free" Open Source software and shows no signs of migrating away from it.
Also note that support infrastructure is still entirely valid as a business model regardless of whether the end user has the source code or not. Why else is IBM investing in Linux and promoting it so heavily ?
All developers are of course free to chose their own software licenses but I personally would not want to contribute to yet another closed-source package. Give something back to the Open Source Community rather than just take.
Ah yes funding..
Always one of the trickier issues to resolve. Yet many large Open Source projects seem to materialise and prosper nonetheless.
Myself I am happy to chip in to OS projects in my spare time, coding is one of the things that I simply enjoy doing. However that time is obviously a finite resource.
Sponsorship is one option. Also some companies are enlightened/brave/foolish enough to pay developers to work full time on OS work.
Sometimes companies open the source to already existing products in order to get community involvement.
With regards to infrastructure , even if AccountingWEB were not willing to offer support resources there are plenty of other resources such as sourceforge that provide the hosting and management infrastructure for Free projects for nothing.
Another point about UNIX desktop systems..
It is probably worth mentioning that a significant computer company whose market share is entirely focused on the desktop user, and who are famous for their commitment to non-nerd "normal users" is in the process of migrating their entire product line over to a version of UNIX.
I am of course referring to Apple whose "next generation" operating system OS X is derived from BSD unix ,via what is in my opinion the finest desktop operating system produced to date, NEXTSTEP.
NEXTSTEP was particularly popular with financial institutions during its lifetime , and there is an ongoing project to replicate the entire NEXTSTEP environment on Linux.
Even Microsoft is commited to porting its desktop applications to Mac OS X and because of its NEXSTEP / Unix roots there is considerable synergy between the new Macintosh and Linux - they share many of the same components and tools "under the hood"
Linux versions of mainstream desktop accounting systems may well be closer to market than you suspect.
Reality check
This ping pong between Linux and Windows fans is more typical of PC Mag or Byte than AccountingWeb.
Two facts:
Linux is better than Windows by far
Windows hugely dominates the market place
Despite the former, the force of the latter dictates that most people who want to run a desktop accounts package are doing so in Windows.
As I have often observed, the fact that a product is a market leader does not make it a good product. The Ford Escort sold in millions and was a duff car.
As for Sage, their software retains design faults that I first observed in my 1984 copy running under CP/M.
A good source of Linux Software information
.. is Freshmeat. Try searching on "accounting". It also allows you to extend your searching to other linux software indexing sites.
Another suggestion might be Java. Linux has a number of high quality Java implementations for it (IBM's JVM is particularly fine). And due to the platform neutrality of this language any Java based accounts software would run just fine .
With regards to the interesting assertions made by Mr Tanna regarding the state of linux as a software development platform, could I point out as the most visible component within what is commonly referred to by the media as the "Open Source" movement (i.e. Software that is distributed in source code form for you to use and modify as you wish) then Linux owes its very existence to the proliferation of compilers and development tools available to it.
Obviously-as without compilers you cannot change your free source code into useful programs!
It is as a direct result of this that any freely downloadable linux distribution comes "out of the box" with industrial-strength development utilities for just about any programming language under the sun. Sitting in front of me at this linux workstation I have immediate access to complilers and development tools for Fortran, ADA C, C++ , 3 flavours of java, perl, Python ,HTML, tcl, XML, LISP, scheme and others far too obscure to list!
True, there is no "visual basic" style point and click programming environment - but there are plenty of Enterprise quality IDE's for real programming languages.(Suns's Forte and QT Designer/KDevelop immediately spring to mind)
And as for the assertion that linux is good as a "hobby tool",could I just point out that AccountingWEB is hosted ,developed and built entirely on Linux.
Finally in answer to your question about what sort of individual has Unix systems at home, I feel compelled to point out that I do, in fact I have eight of them ;-)
Linux - accounts applications not commercially viable
"I want accounts software under Linux at PC software prices (or even better at Linux software prices). I want it to import and export PC accounts s/w data."
As a specialist accounts software house supporting DOS, Windows and bespoke Unix systems, we looked at migrating out standard package for Dos/Windows to Linux several months ago, unfortunatly the research showed that the market was less that that for mac's so it would not make commercial sense to undertake the work involved.
I suspect from your other comment, that Sage done the same and came to the same conclusions.
PC Software prices are only as low as they are because of the volume of DOS/Windows PC's available to the market, reduce the volume and the software costs escalate per package to the point where it's cheaper to buy a PC with Sage etc. than the native linux/unix/mac software.
You best bet would be to hunt round the various Linux user groups on the web.
Good luck
Alan Sheppard
(Technical Sales Manager - Bestfirm Limited)
I found this on the Linux website...
http://www.linux.org/apps/AppId_6741.html
It claims to be a General Ledger application. More detail on their developer's site:
Perhaps someone can let us know if it works?
?
There's plenty of accounting software that runs under Unix of various flavours. What do you want?
Office\2
John,
I'm not sure if there is a lot out there for free on Linux, but........
Office\2 (Hansa's little brother) is there with it's integrated accounting software with calendar, email, remote access without terminal server or citrix type add-on's, etc, etc. It comes very much in the 00's bracket with value pack add-ons to fit your needs (campaigns, dual base cureency, etc)
Please contact us
Daniel Clark
Ryba Macaulay Ltd
[email protected]
Ahh...
Ok, so what you want is desktop PC software to run under Linux on a single machine that can interchange its data with Windows applications. That's not the same question as you started with.
On that basis, then you're right, there's not much available.
And I know you said Linux, but then Linux is a freeware clone of Unix. Lots of accounting software in multi user environments runs on Unix, and many are specifically supported on Linux servers, too. But these aren't desktop applications.
I don't like the idea of being in thrall to Microsoft, either, by the way.