MS Access 'equiv' for Linux 3291

prg

return from it) I agree with you. But as a consultant to under-capitalized small businesses or small government agencies with tight budgets I have a different view.

People who are NOT in the software business don't care about software. They just want to get their work done, they want to do a good job so maybe they will get a promotion (or just keep their job,) and they want to get home to see their family at the end of the day (like before midnight)

For better or worse, Microsoft Access helps them do that, as does the rest of the Office suite.

Linux has 'cloned' most of the MS suite, but the one tool that is has become a kingpin in the small business 'machine' has not been addressed.... a stand-alone application that combines a relational database with drag-drop form-building widgets that are event-oriented and scriptable via an easy-to-learn language, coupled with a highly robust reporting engine.

You seem to blister at the concept of Linux developers copying the tools in Windows. But the fact is that people are not going to run their businesses on vi, sed, awk, and command-line interfaces. That boat sailed a long time ago.

Either support the concept of giving people what they want in order to do their jobs, get their promotions and seeing their families or accept the fact that Linux will never be more than a paragraph or two in the great book of computing.

My lament is that Linux has come so far so fast and is almost 'there' as a replacement for Windows... except for this one application. I don't say that an Access clone would turn Linux into the 'people's choice' over night, but I know it would help me when I recommend Linux as a solution (when I think it is the right solution for the client... and for most businesses it would automatically be if it had an Access-like application.)

It's an operating system, not a religion. In business, computers are just tools. No one worships them.

Al C.