While looking for a decent accounting system I stumbled upon KMyMoney, a Personal Finance Manager for KDE. There's a feature set similar to bloated apps like MS-Money and Quicken, but without the bloat. How about QIF import/export (so your accountant stays happy), double-entry accounting (integer-based), support for several currencies, VAT, and support for several types of accounts (like mortgages and savings). It's chock full of wizards to simplify stuff like setting up accounts. There's even support for the GnuCash file format. Plus, you can encrypt your data file to protect it from prying eyes.

 Now that's all well and good, but I had to know more about KMyMoney. What motivated the authors? Here's a group of dedicated coders taking on some pretty big names (none of which have really sought the Linux market though).  So I asked them about their motivations and got answers that I feel go to the very heart of the open source movement. Read on for the rest of the story...

Obviously writing open source code is not the path to infinite riches. It does have it's own rewards though. My million-dollar question was this: why write open source software? And specifically why make KMyMoney?

Robert Wadley had this to say:
"1. It's fun
  2. It's exciting
  3. It's a way I can give back to the community as I have benefited greatly from the contributions of others.
  4. I can actually have an influence.
  5. Problems are fixed _a lot_ faster.
  6. The "major behemoths" ignored (and continue to ignore) my needs. I can't tell you how many times I had contacted Intuit about getting a version of Quicken that would run on Linux. Previously I used MS Money, which I really liked, but there is no chance that will ever run natively on Linux and I don't like it enough to have to use Windows again.
  7. It's open.
  8. I can share it (and not feel guilty about it.)
  9. I don't want to run Windows (nearly all of what I thought were problems with 'computers' turned out to really be mostly issues with  MS Windows. You don't figure that out though until you use something else. OsX, Linux, BSD Etc.)
 10. Oh, and it's cheaper."

Thomas Baumgart added:
 "1. The personal finance management was the last thing I needed to replace to get a M$ free computer.
 2. I can learn new things (e.g. accounting principles, object oriented design, KDE)
 3. I benefit from learning these things in other jobs"

Ace Jones had a cool angle:
"The fact is: I would write code as a hobby ANYWAY.  For years before open source, I wrote all sorts of apps just for my own use and research.  See Tom's reasons #2 and #3.  But no one ever benefited from them but me and some of my friends.  And the apps weren't very rich or exciting because it was just me working in it and I don't have a lot of time to devote to it.
So thanks to the miracle of open source, I can channel my hobby efforts to something much more rich and fulfilling, AND something that way more people can benefit from.  Good software creators are artists at heart, and what good is your art if it sits in your attic and no one sees it?"

This is the kind of passion you don't always find in the cubicles of for-profit software companies. I just love the fact that open source developers take such pride in their work... Without the passion, there is no potential. And no one has to be paid to evangelize their platform!