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loss leader?
loss leader?
Posted Jan 13, 2005 18:26 UTC (Thu) by ccyoung (subscriber, #16340)Parent article: Quasar Accounting under the GPL
not necessarily criticizing, but it seems to me this is a loss leader to sell their retail and pos packages. the pos, btw, is $300 per terminal.
cups is doing something similar: a functional version free or you can buy the high class version of the same.
not trying to be a purist (not), but it is as if companies were using the GPL as an advertising ploy.
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loss leader?
Posted Jan 13, 2005 19:02 UTC (Thu) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link]
If you don't need the retail functions then it's not that bad. Everything is set up using Canadian terminology (which is quite logical, considering their name...) :-) and it does seem like the software is oriented toward a retail management angle from what I've seen (although I'm certainly no kind of accountant... perhaps a CPA could weigh in on how it stacks up?)
The addition of PostgreSQL support is very nice, and it sets up fairly easily. Overall I'd say it's not a serious competitor to Quickbooks quite yet. Of course, your mileage may vary. Caveat emptor (in regards to my opinion, as well as the software.) :-)
loss leader?
Posted Jan 13, 2005 19:28 UTC (Thu) by Webexcess (subscriber, #197) [Link]
Not a ploy.. have you seen what competing software costs?
They've just GPL'd the product that they had been giving away at zero cost but with a restrictive license before.
loss leader?
Posted Jan 13, 2005 19:51 UTC (Thu) by peace (guest, #10016) [Link]
If Linux Canada is using it as a "loss leader" I don't see the problem. The accounting package is quite good and is GPL, which should satisfy any purist, so I'm not sure where your problem lies with them.
We use Quasar to manage our small business books and do sales quotes and invoices. It has been an excellent product, much better than what the anti-business GNUCash had to offer at the time. I know GNUCash has recently added business features but I haven't taken a look recently. Quasar is client server/multi user with permission management which has been very helpfull. It also has a redimentary concept of workflow which makes it easier to use and train on than some other options. Our accountant likes it too.
One thing that Quasar is lacking is good reporting though. I hope that the GPL'ing of their code will help with that.
I don't get the sense that they are doing this as a 'ploy'. I think it simply makes great business sense for them as it will get them onto to distro CD's where they can potentially get some market penetration in the developing Linux as POS system area. I have been wishing they would do this for several years. Thanks Linux Canada!
Kind Regards
loss leader?
Posted Jan 13, 2005 22:35 UTC (Thu) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link]
I'm not sure that I would describe gnucash as "anti-business", but I can assure you that I would describe it as "anti-sanity"--if you've ever tried to install it from source, you know exactly what I mean. Building quasar was a breeze... a most refreshing change.
loss leader?
Posted Jan 13, 2005 23:35 UTC (Thu) by peace (guest, #10016) [Link]
For quite awhile GNUCash resisted adding any business related features. they were quite vocal about _not_ wanting to include features specific to business users as they felt it would complicate the product for home users, which they considered their desired audience. I'm not faulting the developers or GNUCash but I think that that decision ended up hurting the project in that it isolated them from a very active, needy and committed user base. It was actually quite a strange thing for them to do as they would also state at the same time that one of the aims of GNUCash was to develop an "enterprise" class transaction engine for ERP type accounting. Anyway, for quite awhile it did feel like the developers were anti-business as they would activly discourage suggestions for things like invoicing and customer management. Things that GNUCash is now starting to include.
As for being anti-sanity I do seem to remember running into a lot of tricky library versioning issues when I tried to compile from source. But most distributions include it in their package system so it's easy to install. Hopefully Quasar will start showing up as well. Good to hear Quasar compiles cleanly though.
Kind Regards
loss leader?
Posted Jan 14, 2005 1:30 UTC (Fri) by jonth (subscriber, #4008) [Link]
Not necessarily criticising, but it sounds like you're after "free as in beer" programs, which is most emphatically not what the GPL is about. GPL is not a free ride - it's an opportunity to join and help a community.
It doesn't matter if they're doing this as a ploy (and I agree that it's quite probably a marketing ploy to attenpt to leverage their POS products) or not - the code is GPL, so we can use it without reprisals in other GPL products. Who cares why it's GPL as long as it is!
(And I don't know about you, but the functional version of CUPS works just fine for me)
loss leader?
Posted Jan 14, 2005 2:32 UTC (Fri) by bpepers (guest, #27237) [Link]
As one of the two people who decided to go the open source route and as the developer of 99.999% of Quasar I can tell you that the choice to go open source is a more complicated one than simply saying its a loss leader. There is a pride aspect of seeing your software used all over the world and I personally get a lot out of this. There is a feeling that the business accounting area has reached the point where its ripe for a good open source product to take over and I want my product to be that and not one of the ones that have to react to it happening. There is a desire to move to more of a support and consulting role rather than trying to sell our product because I think there is more money in this and that its a better model for our product and the market. There is a desire to give something back to the open source community for all I've received in development tools and other software. There is the desire to get more eyes on the code and more testers to make Quasar a better product. There is the feeling that Linux is such a wonderful fit for business operations and the desire to see it used more in this area. Its hard to decide which of these is the most dominant one since it changes over time...
And there are also negative aspects to the open source route. There is the fear that you will lose all control of your product after many years of very long hours to get it where it is. There is the worry that I've done something really stupid in the code so it can be daunting to have it all hanging out there for review. There is the worry that you will be misunderstood in the effort to try to balance open source with making a living. There is the fear that while this may make Quasar very popular it might kill the revenue stream that I depend on to allow me to continue working on Quasar.
I hope to help build a community around Quasar and to see it grow into a giant of the business accounting world and of course I hope to find a way to make a buck along the way to stay in business!
loss leader?
Posted Jan 14, 2005 14:01 UTC (Fri) by headsman (guest, #17057) [Link]
Weel, I wish you good in all this!
I've also read the FAQ about the licencing, and I'm very glad to see that you understand just right the use of the GPL; because I tought that you would do something similar to MySQL, which I believe to be wrong about their licencing understanding (but someone can tell me I'm wrong here).
Best regards.
Quasar && QB
Posted Jan 14, 2005 22:48 UTC (Fri) by a_hippie (subscriber, #34) [Link]
Bravo bpepers for making your decision to GPL this part of your package. Since this company was so kind to respond to an earlier querry from me regarding a package that is enough QB like to help migrate my wife over from vintage MS98. I think you have made the right decision personally. I hope to see the package(s) appear in some of the well known/used distro's.... that would get the exposure going and begin the feedback process.
I really hope you make it happen! Good luck to you are your partners there.
loss leader?
Posted Jan 14, 2005 8:24 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]
Even if it's so - it's two-edged sword: such a move will quite severely limit their ability to abuse paying customers.
Any free software needs initial "seed" - minimal yet functional version. GPL version if functional can easily act like such a seed. So it makes much harder for them to abuse users in the future - even if it's marketing ploy it gives users real benefits so why it's a bad thing ?