On Sunday 23 June 2002 00:27, Ryan Ware wrote:
snip--
>  Most opensource
> projects I've seen (not including linux itself) are done by a hand
> full of developers,  (look at source forge and see how many
> developers a project has) in there spare time.  No way are they ever
> going to build an exchange or notes/domino type product.  It seems
> to me what software exist on Linux tends to be of
> networking/internet related toolsets - not business software.

A quick look on freshmeat gives:
  10 categories found
 
Topic :: Office/Business (754 projects)
Topic :: Office/Business :: Financial (280 projects)
Topic :: Office/Business :: Financial :: Accounting (70 projects)
Topic :: Office/Business :: Financial :: Investment (30 projects)
Topic :: Office/Business :: Financial :: Point-Of-Sale (40 projects)
Topic :: Office/Business :: Financial :: Spreadsheet (15 projects)
Topic :: Office/Business :: Groupware (46 projects)
Topic :: Office/Business :: News/Diary (17 projects)
Topic :: Office/Business :: Office Suites (39 projects)
Topic :: Office/Business :: Scheduling (126 projects) 

It looks like some interest exists.  Sure they may not all be what you are 
looking for, but most probably have not been in existence long.

> As long as I'm ranting, another thing we will never see from open
> source software is documentation to the level that is typical of
> commercial software.

I hope this remains true.  From what I have seen of commercial software 
documentation, it is lacking, out of date, a PITA to read....

OS docs on the other hand are witty and to the point. The docs require the 
user to actually open a file called README.  I don't know how many times I 
have solved a friends problems with an app on Linux when all I did was look 
at the README or INSTALL plain text file that came with the application.  
Some apps don't have them, but most mature apps do!

Kelly Black
KB0GBJ