[TriLUG] Vista

[Tim Jowers]

Kevin,

I say yes. There are online payroll services now.

Quickbooks file format has been forcefully kept closed. I just wanted to
know if any other issues existed. Same sort of issue for AutoCAD as well
BTW. The file format bastion is, IMO, the last battle before a segment falls
to open source. Maybe Word is there now!

Last I looked a few years ago there was a payroll effort being done for GNU
Cash but no planned date.

Tim



On Thu, Jul 10, 2008 at 2:20 PM, Kevin Hunter <hunteke at earlham.edu> wrote:

> At 1:23p -0400 on Thu, 10 Jul 2008, Ron Joffe wrote:
> > On Thursday 10 July 2008 13:08, Christopher L Merrill wrote:
> >> If _I_ was to start a software business right now, it might
> >> be replacing those with either browser-based services or cross-
> >> platform clients. Give users a good reason to switch and they
> >> would - even if the purchase cost was the same, because support
> >> from those companies is horrid.  Quickbooks is both indispensable
> >> and a PITA for us on a weekly basis.
> >
> > We have the same issues with quickbooks, ended up running it in a vm. The
> > online version was way too expensive.
> >
> > We haven't found any linux based (open or commercial) which our
> accounting
> > firm can utilize, so we are stuck with quickbooks for the foreseeable
> future
>
> The tough question: is there a market for a web based and open version
> of quickbooks?
>
> I know there are plenty of folks able to write something like this
> (especially on this list), but there are lots of caveats for this kind
> of thing.  The most prevalent for the crusading authors is money.  Then
> there's constancy.  The basics of double-accounting likely won't change,
> but the minutiae (e.g. tax laws) will likely change every year.  Without
> monetary support, I can see authors quickly moving away from something
> like this.
>
> I'm making a (perhaps erroneous) assumption that the majority of folks
> on this list would want this open source, and likely free, but that
> doesn't bode well for the largely mundane work of keeping minute details
> up to code.  That's a lot of research and constant upkeep for an open
> source project.
>
> Who will pay those folks for there arduous work keeping a project
> up-to-date?
>
> As a small business owner who both appreciates open source, and wants to
> help the local community/economy, I know I'd be willing to pay annually,
> or even monthly to support something like this.  Are there others on
> this list who would be willing to show monetary support for this kind of
> project?  Or are we stuck solutions that can't be changed?
>
> Kevin
> --
> TriLUG mailing list        : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug
> TriLUG FAQ  : http://www.trilug.org/wiki/Frequently_Asked_Questions
>