TurboCASH is licenced under the GPL 3, but you have to take a pragmatic approach here:
TurboCASH is completely self financed. I am a one man business and have to be realistic about what is achievable and what is not. We have a large community, but it does not voluntarily get up and follow long distances in new directions, it has to be paid to get there. The resources are all available as long as the cash comes first. Let us focus on doing what can be done with the least amount of money involved. If we ease off on the idealism pedal we can achieve much with a whole lot less finance. It is 3 years old, but see
Who pays for TurboCASH Development .
In an ideal world we would have a Native Linux development system. However what we do have is a TurboCASH system that compiles and runs without error under WINE. Right now this costs us nothing to implement. We can even link it to a pure Linux Server. If you have a remote desktop we can run a pure Linux station to a single Wine server installation. If it is a Windows Shop we can run Windows Clients to a Linux Firebird server. So there are lots of disruptive opportunities.
This is all just semantics. All Open Source software is compromised. Running Linux on an i386 platform is not Pure Open Source because Intel Machine code is proprietary. WINE gives us a way of levering Linux in - NOW. If pure Linux is a deal breaker for you, then you have to give me some ideas on how to overcome the $ 1 Million PLUS funding problem.
Our reason for being in the Windows dev environment is historical. We have followed the market. The desktop market in Accounting is 97% Windows. None of this was of my making, blame the Linux Community for this. If we had followed a Linux only strategy we would never have got 100 000 users. If we did not have 100 000 users, you would not be interested in us. We do not fight the operating system battle directly, but we are your supporters. We are able to swing our community towards you. The move to Linux for a TurboCASH users is easier than for a Windows user! So in the same way that Mark Shuttleworth will do his accounts on a Windows machine, and Bill Gates' children want an IPOD, so we have to make do what we are given.
Our real battle is with Intuit and SAGE. It helps us not to tie one hand behind our backs when taking on some of the most vicious people in the software business. We have to take the battle towards them. Refusing to work on the Windows platform is tantamount to handing the entire market to them. If you think Microsoft is predatory, let me introduce you to a new species, the accounting vendors- and they have no intention of changing. The only language they understand is the iron fist. We are going to have to beat it out of them
To compile TurboCASH you have to purchase certain proprietary components. I have kicked and screamed at the vendors of these programs and they have closed in like tortoises. We have not upgraded our Delphi development environment for nearly 7 years now. It has done little or no harm to the project.
Everytime an opportunity has come up, I have moved in favour of the Open source solution. Firebird is GPL3, ZeosLib, Reportman all of these give us a Linux alternative. We have been working with the Lazarus project. We will get there, but it would take $1 Million PLUS and 1 year to fully get the job done. Wine has given us the port - FREE.
Lazarus is comming along, but it would be a major port to move to their environment. As would be a port to Python or Ajax/PhP. Its not the coding - its the debugging of the business rules that will take the energy.
Just taking out the proprietary components and making it a Windows only compile would take $ 200 000 - it would still require Delphi. There are alternaitves to spending money, by introducing WINE. We could also spend less by programming "around" the problem. There are lot off opportunities to develop pure open source plugins that work in conjunction with the TurboCASH program and do not require compiling the core.
No Kidding right now TurboCASH is all that you have. This is not a reflection on those that try, but rather a reflection on the barrier to entry into the accounting market. I will show you the analysis. People simply WON'T do their accounting online. The Desktop model - like the spreadsheet is here to stay for some time yet. Entry in to the Accounting market is not simple. There are options available for POS, Personal Finance, Online invoicing, but for the last 10 years no one has been able to enter the mainstream accounting business. This includes the very expensive attempt by Microsoft to unsuccessfully introduce Microsoft Accounting Express.
Do not over emphasise the technical aspect of the Accounting market. It is more about a massive database of common business rules and a community that understands this, and is reluctant to change. In the currnet climate, the free beer is more important than the technology. In the last few months my business straight into the heart of Intuit terrotory (USA) and Sage territory (UK) has risen dramatically.
We have the unique position that we can deliver Batch drive double entry accounting, simultaneously in 25 Languages and in over 80 tax regimes - in a matter of hours and we can do it for FREE. It takes a little understanding of the technicalities to understand just how unique that is. Niether SAGE nor Intuit can do this. Extending this into the Linux environment will be a string in the bow for both of us. And right now for a WINE User we can deploy this in Linux too.
I feel that accounting is the last barrier to getting Linux into the Office Desktop. It seems such a small step to make - $ 1 Million - but I am not capable of doing that on my own. What I am capable of doing is moving the TurboCASH community along on Wine Free and even more if we were able to get some support from the Linux community. Our linux user base is growing. Faster would be better. We have no debt and no outside shareholders, no foundation, so I am very flexible in how we move from here. I would like to see Linux successful and I will help in any way that makes financial sense.
