Hi Marjan,
On Fri, May 20, 2016 at 5:02 PM, Marjanw <pr002...@proximus.be> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I think this discussion demonstrates there are different types of users.
> We simply have to admit that!
>
Absolutely! I'm the last one to deny so. However, there are some things
that can't be left to the user as a choice: if people want to use their
browsers with unsafe encryption, Google and Firefox now won't let them
anymore. The same applies to GPG which will soon be removing (or maybe has
already removed) support for known-insecure algorithms. Shooting oneself in
the foot that way isn't supported any more.
My point: The functionalities we offer should be in line with the
requirements that our users have *as well as* the requirements that our
users *should* have (e.g. universal legal and auditing requirements). Our
users are very often not accounting professionals and like the encryption
software users (who 99% will not be algorithm savvy), I think it's our role
to help them not to shoot themselves in the foot.
> Open Source software is all about freedom.
>
True. It's about the freedom to own your own software and modify it to suit
your needs. The LedgerSMB project whole-heartily supports that concept:
we're giving - free as in speech *and* free as in beer - to the community
the software that volunteers have invested years of their life in - mostly
without compensation of any kind (i.e. without being paid for it by anyone).
> Freedom is an important drive for many of us to use Open Source software.
>
Yup. Same here. Although I can't help the feeling that for many people the
fact that a lot of FOSS is 'free as in beer' remains an important property
of the software.
> Restricting freedom will make users unhappy.
>
Maybe. Can you say in what way LedgerSMB's development team doesn't abide
by the Open Source movement's ideas according to your opinion?
In the end they will vote by their feet.
>
Why? They got the freedom they were promised! They can even edit the
sources themselves which will allow them to do the foot-shooting, after all?
> So I think the only satisfactory solution will be to offer our users the
> freedom to choose.
> If we have users, which feel they need some form of editing,
> deleting/redoing a transaction,
> and this is technically possible, we should not restrict them from doing
> that.
>
I disagree for several reasons:
* encryption software won't offer you the option to use insecure
algorithms and we should not offer methods that are legally or ethically
banned
* in this specific case, there's really no easy way to correctly implement
this in our current code base
* more options bear a maintenance cost to the development team *and* make
the program harder to configure and understand for users -- we should not
think lightly of introducing new options
Especially the last point is of great importance, I think. It's more
important to have *working* software (at all) than have software with loads
of options which works for some people some of the time. People will
definitely leave when the software simply doesn't do the things they should
expect it to do, if they need that software for their day-to-day work. And
rightfully so.
> Secondly I will advocate simple solutions.
>
So do I, but looking at the bigger picture, solutions with more options
aren't simple; they become highly complex really quickly due to the sheer
number of possible configurations.... And what to think of the new user who
needs to understand all these options and decide what is applicable for
their situation?
> Adding a void flag to transactions to manipulate reports sounds opaque,
> construed.
>
/not/ showing the transactions will be a filter (an option :-) ) on default
settings, they /will/ show.
> If you really don't want transactions to show up, the most straightforward
> solution is:
> they are simply not there!
>
We're not the only ones not supporting deletion of *posted* transactions:
https://www.erp5.com/howto/erp5-developer-howto/erp5-HowTo.Delete.Accounting.Transaction
Some background: while the people speaking up here generally work for
single-person businesses (by their own words), LedgerSMB is also being used
by businesses (of o1bigtenor seems to be an example) who *do* require these
anti-fraud measures, audit trails and cumulative-only posting system. For
those businesses, we'd be end-of-the line if we'd implement transaction
overwrite/transaction-delete. So, this isn't a matter of simply ignoring
users, it's not unwillingness on my part; it has to do with balancing
requirements from lots of people.
> Just my two cents.
>
Thanks for your feedback, it's absolutely highly valued!
--
Bye,
Erik.
http://efficito.com -- Hosted accounting and ERP.
Robust and Flexible. No vendor lock-in.
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