GnuCash and GNOME Office

[grib billgribble com (Bill Gribble)]

I've just recently started following this list, and it's with some
concern that I saw the thread discussing GnuCash and its role in GNOME
office.

In particular, I have a problem with this statement from the GUADEC
summary:

Sam TH <sam uchicago edu>: 
> GnuCash, I am told, has expressed the active desire _not_ to be
> considered part of GNOME Office.  

I'm not denying that you've been told that :) but I think there's been
some miscommunication.  GnuCash *does* want to be a part of GNOME
Office, and has a lot to offer to it.

In addition to being a GnuCash developer, I work for Gnumatic, the
company that has substantially driven GnuCash development for the last
year or so.  Gnumatic, of course, is interested in making money from
developing and supporting GnuCash, and to that end we can offer
significant value-adds to people doing integration, packaging, and
support of the GNOME Office software. (*)

If there was ever a concern expressed about including GnuCash in GNOME
Office, it was intended in the nature of a request that Gnumatic get
props along with Helix/Ximian and other corporate sponsors of the
GNOME Office software.  It's my personal opinion that GNOME is young
enough and in a competitive-enough struggle for ownership of the
desktop that GNOME-centric companies should be working as
collaborators; I have felt this spirit among other GNOME companies,
and I'd like Gnumatic to be a part of it.

It just makes sense to me that when companies are talking about
including GnuCash in their distributions of GNOME Office that they
would approach Gnumatic about it, and that when people are putting
together commercial packages including GNOME Office that we could be a
party to the construction of service, documentation, and other
value-adds that will help sales.  Why?  Because we know more about
GnuCash than anybody else and we have very competent people whose job
is to make GnuCash and GNOME successful.

In short, the GnuCash project would love to see GnuCash be part of the
GNOME Office, and Gnumatic would love to be a valuable part of the
packaging, sales, and support of GnuCash in its role as part of GNOME
Office.

Thanks,
Bill Gribble
Gnumatic

(*) <plug> Gnumatic is also actively seeking contract programming and
consulting work in the areas of GNOME development, Linux financial
services, and custom GnuCash extensions. </plug>