Re: SL to Ledger-SMB - Is it a good idea and why?

["Chris Travers" <..hidden..>]

I encourage other people to respond as well.  The project will only
grow as a result.  However, I am going to also take a stab at these
questions.

On 3/2/07, david <..hidden..> wrote:
> I've been lurking here, wondering about changing over. It seems like
> it's  time to make a decision, given the progressive drift apart of the
> two systems.
>
> With due respect to Chris and other developers, the questions are:
>
>
> * what is the down side to SMB vis-a-vis SL?

I think the biggest downside at the moment is that a lot of the
software is in transition.  The 1.0 to 1.1 transition was easy, but
1.1 to 1.2 is going to be harder.  Also the installation is not as
simple in LSMB 1.2 at the moment.  We expect this to be fixed in 1.3.

Also, due to some very invasive security fixes, it is possible that we
may continue to find minor bugs in 1.2 for a little while.  I expect
we will get fixes out quickly and patches to those who need them.  So
the enhanced security does come at a small cost in this area.
> * how painful is the transition?

Transition to LSMB 1.1 is pretty painless in most cases. There are,
however, corner cases where you can run into grief.  This is because
we are a lot more strict in terms of data integrity and hence
sometimes the upgrade will fail if you have inconsistant data already
in your database.

Transition to LSMB 1.2 will be a bit harder.  It should be reasonably
easy though.

> * are people using SMB happily?

I have some customers who use it, and of course, I use it internally.
I am happy with it and my customers seem to be happy.  Of course, I am
in a different place in this regard than others here.  I too would be
interested
> * is anyone sorry they did it?

Not here :-)

Now, for the up-sides:

1)  We have a much higher standard of security than is found in
SQL-Ledger.  Some may recall that this was one major reason for the
fork.

2)  Open community in development, support, and services

3)  A commitment to building an open API and web services interface.
The API work is ongoing and has barely begun but the web services
interface will cover some aspects of the application in 1.3.

4)  A stronger commitment to and understanding of data integrity than
is found wrt SQL-Ledger.

5)  An introductory manual is included with the software.

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers