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Extensions.Joomla.org <-- Less and less useful all the time.

Sorry - this is my experience. Seems like the commercial extension vendors are winning. JED is Full of BAIT and SWITCH Tactics in many extensions.

Main 2 Complaints

1. Download Links only going to a fake download link that brings you to a Buy page even if you register and login there is no download. One extension I know of was recently relisted after they fixed it and then immediately went back to violating after they got back into the JED.

2. Download Links only going to one tiny piece of what is described in the main JED listing which basically gets you a worthless, unusable component unless you buy the whole product. In this case an extension was de-listed from JED for having obfuscated code, so they made one tiny piece of it public and downloadable, but they advertise the whole commercial product in JED --> MAKING FOR HOURS OF WASTED TIME TRYING TO GET IT TO WORK AS ADVERTISED until you read the documentation and find you are actually missing the component, modules and plugins folders of the extension from the download.

Otherwise - Joomla is still the Best!

1. did you report it (again)
2. report them?

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Yes, reported again after they were relisted. Nothing happened.

Has there been any movement on this issue? I've just ran into another bait and switch, like the first example above and it should be freaking obvious to the JED leaders when these 'larger' Joomla Extension Vendors violate JED terms and break the rules, but they are just allowed to do it JED, I guess because they are big.

Hey Rainfire,
Mandville said it - report it.

What do you expect from the JED? Should we make a daily listing monitoring? Visit the dev site, try to download the extension or what?

Frankly - it is the developer who uses bait & switch who loses. If I see such a thing I know that I don't want to be a customer.

On the other hand - if I get to download the free extension with ease, it does what was described in the listing - why not buy the pro version? I'm all for that!

Again - report the listing and we will check it. If there is no link to the free download on the page, than the listing will be unpublished. It is as simple as that.

If you have any better ideas how we should deal with such developers - go ahead! Let us know!

Kind regards,
Daniel

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http://compojoom.com

If it is impossible to easily naviate to the desired extension that matches your needs, use it. If not then dont, try something else.
If the extensions is clearly not as described, leave the review.

_________________
HU2HY- Poor questions = Poor answer
Un requested Help PM's will be added to the foe list and possibly just deleted
{Community.Connect Administrator }{ Showcase & Security Moderator}

I understand completely. Something needs to be done about Commercial Vendors Bait and Switch. Its happening frequently and lately all I can tell is they are winning. Even after posting earlier, I found one more extension, which I AM going to buy for $105, but they still have a download link in JED for a 'Basic' version which IS NOT available.

Sum it up . . . ran into two more bait and switches today - Commercial Vendors are ruling JED by default.

If you report them, and found to be a valid report, then the editors will deal with it

_________________
HU2HY- Poor questions = Poor answer
Un requested Help PM's will be added to the foe list and possibly just deleted
{Community.Connect Administrator }{ Showcase & Security Moderator}

Feel like I'm repeating myself. Post three above.
http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=262&t=728353&p=2859977#p2845446



Are you saying I should report the two from the first post again for third time and the two I found today also?

Repeat offenders can be banned from the JED so yes you should report them again. With 9900 extensions it would be impossible for the JED team to daily monitor links

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Reported 3 out of the 4 I'm discussing again; one of them twice. Nothing happened. I reiterate my point:


Extensions.Joomla.org <-- Less and less useful all the time.


Main 2 Complaints

1. Download Links only going to a fake download link that brings you to a Buy page even if you register and login there is no download. One extension I know of was recently relisted after they fixed it and then immediately went back to violating after they got back into the JED.

2. Download Links only going to one tiny piece of what is described in the main JED listing which basically gets you a worthless, unusable component unless you buy the whole product. In this case an extension was de-listed from JED for having obfuscated code, so they made one tiny piece of it public and downloadable, but they advertise the whole commercial product in JED --> MAKING FOR HOURS OF WASTED TIME TRYING TO GET IT TO WORK AS ADVERTISED until you read the documentation and find you are actually missing the component, modules and plugins folders of the extension from the download.

Hi,
did you contact the developers directly? Sometimes they forget to update the urls and then it can look like bait and switch. They should at least be able to explain why the free versions are not directly accessible and update their listings accordingly.

Btw, I don't think bait and switch is kind of winning in the jed. There are plenty of commercial devlopers who have fully working free versions in the jed and play fair. The very majority of extensions is non-commercial. The Jed team for sure will take care of it, as it would harm the reputation of the entire directory.

However, if it's really bait and switch then keep on reporting extensions as you find them and use free alternatives.

Regards,
Markus

You are correct and you have a good spirit towards Joomla. I just believe more could be done to separate out commercial products from non-commercial. I even paid for one more extension last month, that is fully Ion-Cube Encoded, listed in JED (still), and I'm very happy with the extension. I think the reason JED is so lax is they are not actually trying to implement all the extensions. So much for the GPL and Open-Source.

I'm done with reporting extensions to JED or even trying to bring them out by name in the forums. I've tried hard not to name the extensions in public. Finally got a response to one report. If they actually used the extension, which is a different extension than I was referring to above. They would find it also Ion-cube encoded and NOT Open-Source. However, they do not use it or look at the extension because it is completely commercial and you have to pay first to download or to even look at the module/component/extension.

To quote: "Open Source Matters". Before anyone nags at me they were reported and passed JED muster (again) - ION-CUBE ENCODED AND ALL. I say just stop with all the pretense . . .

Sorry to hear that you don't want to report extensions that do not comply with the JED rules anymore...

I would strongly advice not to use ION Cube encoded extensions:
* you do not know the inner working
* you can't change its behavior
* and you are totally dependent on the developer. I know a story of a webshop (Magento, not Joomla) that used an ION Cube extension that used some call back to the developers site (to check the license of the software). However, when the developer's website was down one weekend, all the shops that used that ION Cube extension, stopped working that whole weekend because they could not call back...

With so much extensions (at the moment 9,917) and a JED Team of 10 people it is very hard to keep an eye on all the extensions.

The JED Team checks new extensions for complying to the rules. E.g. they cannot be ION Cube encoded as such extensions are not fully open source.
However, if a developer decides to replace the extension on their site with a ION-Cube one, then the Joomla project depends on JED user reports from users like you.

As Joomla is an open source software project that totally depends on volunteers and their contributions, I would ask you to reconsider your stance on not reporting anymore, and report extensions that do not comply with the rules.
Thanks!

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Kind Regards,
Peter Martin, Global Moderator - Community Leadership Team
http://www.db8.nl - Joomla specialist, Nijmegen, Nederland
Joomla 2.5 multilanguage in 10 steps: http://www.db8.nl/multilanguage-in-10-steps

You are of course correct. I will reconsider my position. I had given up hope on forward progress on this matter.