[TriLUG] release format for commercial project

[Wes Garrison via TriLUG]

Thanks, Will,

I actually tried GnuCash a few years ago to see if I could replace
QuickBooks with it and couldn't figure out how to use it.

Then I decided to build this.

On Fri, Sep 18, 2026, 11:42 AM Will Richey <will.richey at afternoonmoon.com>
wrote:

> you might want to look at GnuCash if you haven't already.  it is cross
> platform and free, so a direct competitor.
>
> On September 18, 2026 11:09:54 AM Wes Garrison via TriLUG <
> trilug at trilug.org> wrote:
>
> Thanks Bill and Stephen for the great feedback.
>>
>> I built an AppImage and it actually works great with our embedded database
>> right out of the box, so I was misinformed.
>>
>> It actually worked better with our build system than Flatpak, so we may
>> favor AppImage instead.  I'd still like to support Flatpak for those who
>> want it, as that will let us distribute on Flathub and hopefully help us
>> find an audience, but it's not our top priority.
>>
>> We're using Postgres because we're going to offer users the option to host
>> on their local network in addition to just locally on their PC, and we'd
>> like to use the same DB if possible.
>>
>> We're hoping we will find an audience of folks who hate the new "you will
>> own nothing" paradigm, and want to purchase software once and use it as
>> long as it suits their needs.
>>
>> Now that QuickBooks is no longer offering a desktop version at all, that
>> gives us an opportunity to grab some of those customers.
>>
>> We're calling our product "FQB", for "First Quality Books" obviously.
>>
>> Here's our IndieGoGo campaign if anyone is interested in following us:
>> https://www.indiegogo.com/en/projects/fqb-accounting/first-quality-books
>>
>> ...and we have dark mode :)
>>
>> Thanks again for the feedback,
>>
>> -Wes
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 17, 2026 at 7:34 AM Stephen Wiley <swiley at swiley.net> wrote:
>>
>> I've always preferred AppImage to Flatpak even when I was running Alpine
>>> (I think I typically ran them in a chroot.)
>>>
>>> Is there a reason you went with Postgress instead of Sqlite? That's kind
>>> of an intense RDBMS to be embedding.
>>>
>>> --Stephen
>>>
>>> On Wed, Sep 16, 2026 at 10:42:44PM -0400, Wes Garrison via TriLUG wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hey folks,
>>>>
>>>> We're about ready to release testing versions of our Business
>>>> Bookkeeping
>>>> product to compete with QuickBooks.
>>>>
>>>> Currently I'm building a .deb, .rpm, and .pacman. (x64/amd64 only, no
>>>>
>>> arm64
>>>
>>>> yet for win or linux, but the macOS build supports arm64 and Intel)
>>>>
>>>> Flatpak works, but building it is a clunky process.  Everything seems to
>>>> install and work if you install it for the system, but the icon doesn't
>>>> show up, and installing it with `flatpak --user` is confusing.
>>>>
>>>> How important is flatpak to people?  We probably won't release to
>>>> Flathub
>>>> even if we build a flatpak.
>>>>
>>>> I don't really want to do Snap, and appimage doesn't seem right for our
>>>>
>>> use
>>>
>>>> case, since we are using an embedded Postgresql database, but I'm
>>>> willing
>>>> to be convinced otherwise.
>>>>
>>>> Building for Alpine seems like a huge pain, and it's a small user base,
>>>> even by Linux standards.
>>>>
>>>> How much effort should I put into flatpak, and should I be considering
>>>> other options besides the 3 I mentioned?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks!
>>>>
>>>> -Wes
>>>> --
>>>> This message was sent to: Stephen Wiley <swiley at swiley.net>
>>>> To unsubscribe, send a blank message to trilug-leave at trilug.org from
>>>>
>>> that address.
>>>
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>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
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>
>