comments on eval process

[Daniel Pocock]

Hi all,

I've added some comments about Postbooks[1]

Just some general comments about the template and evaluation process:

Packaging: I personally feel packaging is important as it gives a
product more momentum and it allows for more widespread use.  Some
products are more suitable for packaging than others.  When packaging
Postbooks, we did not put support for database upgrades in the postinst
scripts - instead, we made another package that contains an upstream
utility for database upgrade management.  For a distributed system, this
seems to be a more logical way to work anyway.

Beyond the non-profit use cases: I think it is important to be able to
give specific recommendations on the use of free software for
non-profits, as it is a huge sector where there are compelling arguments
for organisations not to become entrapped in proprietary software
solutions or the wrong cloud.  Even before diving into that sector
though, there is the more general question of business software for any
arbitrary use case (small businesses, personal finances,
freelance/contract workers). It would be good to have a lowest common
denominator and/or to encourage technologies that make these products
more interoperable (for example, automating workflows by encouraging
several of the free software solutions to use a single XML format for
document interchange)

One of the potential project areas in this round of Outreach Program for
Women is the improvement of financial software in Debian.  It has been
the most popular with the applicants but it is unlikely Debian will fund
them all.  Nonetheless, if one of the applicants can be selected with
Debian funding or an external sponsor, this could be an interesting area
where some project work could be undertaken which overlaps the
objectives of the NPO accounting project.
https://wiki.debian.org/OutReachProgramForWomen/Applications#Improving_free_financial_software_packages

Regards,

Daniel

1. http://npoacct.sfconservancy.org/ExistingProjects/Postbooks/