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Discuss the JED 1.5 Version Support Ends blog post here.

See http://community.joomla.org/blogs/leade ... -ends.html

You need to be careful at passing the repository of removed 1.5 data to third parties. Pretty sure the contributors have not authorised that. IANAL

brian wrote:You need to be careful at passing the repository of removed 1.5 data to third parties. Pretty sure the contributors have not authorised that. IANAL

I guess I'm missing where an issue lies with passing data that is already publicly available to anyone.

natselection wrote:I guess I'm missing where an issue lies with passing data that is already publicly available to anyone.

It's important because it's part of your own terms of service. See clause K - Privacy. You need to ask permission of the listers otherwise they will get very, very pinged off and potentially expose OSM to litigation.

I have one problem though, and that's for 1.5-only extensions that are backports of features in Joomla 2.5 and 3.0. For example, I have a Redirect component and that is backport of the code I contributed into 1.6. Is there scope for exceptions or exemptions in this case (because the 2.5/3.0 version is in Joomla itself)?

I should have been more clear whith what will be made available. Only what you can see from the front end will be available. Anything from the back end will not be given.

@masterchief why would those extensions need to be listed? If we are not supporting 1.5 and pushing people towards 2.5/3.0 what is the benefit to the users? There aren't any exceptions planned but if there's a legitimate reason to add an exception it will be considered.

I understood correctly that you were talking about the front end data only but I still see it as a potential legal issue. You have asked people to submit data to site A (the jed) but now you are "giving" it to be used on sites B, C and D without approval. The terms of service might allow this but my quick non-lawyer read suggests that you are not allowed to do it. AND even if you are legally allowed to do it is it really a good idea. I think not.

natselection wrote:I should have been more clear whith what will be made available. Only what you can see from the front end will be available. Anything from the back end will not be given.

Ok, the privacy clause says "personal" information. I guess that's a fine line to tread though. All I can say is, and I agree with Brian, is that you would rattle my confidence and my trust if you passed on a dump of the information without asking permission first. Please keep any negotiations you are having with other parties blatantly open and transparent.

Just out of interest, what is the current workload due to 1.5-only extensions?

natselection wrote:@masterchief why would those extensions need to be listed? If we are not supporting 1.5 and pushing people towards 2.5/3.0 what is the benefit to the users? There aren't any exceptions planned but if there's a legitimate reason to add an exception it will be considered.

So, the funny thing about users is they don't always do what you want or what you tell them. The reality is, 1.5 is still a very large installation base. The case I gave you is specifically limited to backported features like the Redirect component. It was code I helped write for 1.6 and I made it available for 1.5.

I don't really care if the answer is yes or no as to an exception, I'd just like this case to be given reasonable consideration. What's the process for doing that?

I mean, I can "get around it" by creating a 2.5 version which fails to install, or just link to the Joomla download page itself, but that would be just plain dumb.

Another issue is that the data set is legally an asset of OSM which even if it is deemed to have no value to the project would have value to someone else and you cant just give away an asset

As the number of Joomla websites running 1.5 version is very important it is essential to have a repository for 1.5 extensions !

Please consider the possibility to have these files staying online please ...

Hi,

why not create some kind of Joomla 1.5 extensions backup repository?

I know a number of sites running longer then 4 years on Joomla 1.5 base. There has been done tons of modifications to it and it would be really difficult and take too much time to migrate them to Joomla 2.5 or higher.

But those people still want to extend the site itself...

Hi Matt, others

I appreciate the JED keeping the pace and making this move!

I would rather not see a dump of 1.5 data available for anyone. There are already a group of dubious people scraping the JED, and it's cluttering the search engine results already. It would possibly only create more non-official directories with really old data that we (the extension developers) can not (or do not want to) manipulate. I would like to change the text I wrote for ccNewsletter 3 years ago, but those scrappers dont have that option. Besides that, I actually don't think I have the time to go threw those scraped directories to update the details, version numbers, compatibility etc.

And I know that is confusing for users, because I will get questions from people "I read that this and that" and when I ask them where, they point to another site that scraped the JED data. Example: we used to have a Virtuemart 1.1 integration for one of the extensions, but as VM 1.1 was buggy we killed it. Due to the JED scrapers I get questions asking where the integration is a few times per month.

Do we need something in place for Joomla! 1.5 users? I don't think so. If they need a Joomla! 1.5 newsletter, they can google that, and the few extensions that still support that version will pop up anyway for as long as they exist.

If you would want to do something, I would imagine 1.5 only extensions are not shown by default, but can only be found when advanced search is used and "1.5 compatibility" is selected.

Just my 25 cents :-)

Regards
David-Andrew

masterchief wrote:... the privacy clause says "personal" information. I guess that's a fine line to tread though...

Many members of the JED team have interpreted the rules to suit themselves in the past. It looks like nothing has really changed

masterchief wrote:... you would rattle my confidence and my trust if you passed on a dump of the information without asking permission first. Please keep any negotiations you are having with other parties blatantly open and transparent.
....

They have never been transparent before ... how can we expect them to be transparent now. Watch and see them hide behind the confidentiality clause to avoid being transparent. And bend the meaning of the clause when it suits them.

Please try to stay on topic and not continually airing your well known grievance with previous members of the JED. The needle is wearing out

brian wrote:Please try to stay on topic and not continually airing your well known grievance with previous members of the JED. ...

It is on topic and it is not a grievance. As a member of this community I read a lot of the posts and if I notice something then I point it out. My comment was based on myobservations of the posts.

The observations that I made were

• You commented on the legality of what JED intended to do
• masterchief's comment on natselection's interpretation of the privacy clause
• masterchief requesting "Please keep any negotiations you are having with other parties blatantly open and transparent."
  'you are having' suggests that there are already negotiations and that has not been made open.

You may not agree with my view, you may even think me an idiot ... but please do not accuse me of something to which I am not guilty.

It is very petty of you to make accusations about my intentions when you don't like what I say.

Webdongle wrote:'you are having' suggests that there are already negotiations and that has not been made open.

Let me clarify that I don't know for sure, only that the blog suggests people have approached the JED team.

Anyway, here is, respectfully, why I think the JED team has this decision wrong (or at least far too premature). Robert Vining kindly pointed me to a spreadsheet of download stats he is keeping:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... ring#gid=0

As you can see, Joomla 1.5 still accounts for over 80% of our downloads. I'm sorrow, but I can't agree with dropping 1.5 extensions completely when it still constitutes that much bandwidth. That's not even 50/50 yet! Let me put it another way. Currently the JED caters for around 2.1 million of the downloads of the Joomla source a month. After March 15, this will drop to catering for around 250 thousand of the downloads of the Joomla source per month. I'm guessing that will roughly translation into a drop in traffic and **revenue** in the order of, at worst, around 90% but I'd consider a realistic figure to be at least 50%.

Now, I completely agree with not accepting 1.5-only extensions. I completely agree with disabling the 1.5 compatibility tag for new extensions. I do not agree that the usage statistics of 1.5 (regardless of the fact that it is not supported) are telling us that 1.5 is no longer relevant in our community. I am also concerned that the level of consultation with both listers and user has been less than adequate with regard to this decision. And just to make it clear, I am sharing my opinion with my "lister" hat on.

If the plans continue as "told" to us, then I predict all that will happen is that one alternative extension directory will dominate, will also list 2.5 and 3.x extensions, and will suck a good proportion of the traffic away from the JED. I know I'm certainly going to list my extensions on the site that is going to expose me to the most traffic and provide the best service.

historically each transition is not perfect for all
and the JED thing is in the middle of a big transition period


so what's the situation

JED team changed
JED site is going on 3.0
JED tools are changing

April 1, 2012: we no longer accepted 1.5 only submissions.

March 1, 2013: We will begin unpublishing listings that are marked as Joomla 1.5 only

Once our 3.0 migration project is complete we will revisit the possibility of creating a 1.5 listing repository.

so what's the problem
imo the problem is only how much time the migration project will take

just a last consideration
do you remeber something like this
is just happened sometimes ago with 1.0 shift

brian wrote:Another issue is that the data set is legally an asset of OSM which even if it is deemed to have no value to the project would have value to someone else and you cant just give away an asset

Fully agree.

Pascal - Netenvie wrote:As the number of Joomla websites running 1.5 version is very important it is essential to have a repository for 1.5 extensions !.

I don'y think so. The possible reason why the number of Joomla! 1.5 sites is so large is because it "seems" that we still support it.
There is also a huge number of people using IE 6 but Microsoft clearly dropped support for it.

Sometimes it is important to move forward. Plus, I still have a Joomla! 1.0 site but I don't expect JED listing Joomla! 1.0 compatible extensions. I don't even need it because I'm not going to extend this site for the moment.
If I would like to extend this site (and it's planned) the first thing I consider as a "have to" step is to upgrade this site first to a newest Joomla! version.

My 2 cents

masterchief wrote:...
If the plans continue as "told" to us, ...

Do you mean by 'us' the whole Joomla community or a small group ?

masterchief wrote:...
... then I predict all that will happen is that one alternative extension directory will dominate, will also list 2.5 and 3.x extensions, ...

Which alternative directory is that ? and why do you think it would dominate ?

While it is not for me to paraphrase masterchief in any way, I took his statement to suggest that the market invariably supports one solution to any issue over a plethora and that inevitably once there is a solution listing 1.5, it will grow to encompass 2.5/3.0 which is ultimately to the detriment of the JED.
For what it is worth, if that be so, I concur.

alikon wrote:do you remeber something like this
is just happened sometimes ago with 1.0 shift

Yes, I do remember intimately The difference then was that the install base of Joomla 1.5 far exceeded the install base of Joomla 1.0. We haven't crossed that line yet with Joomla 1.5.

abernyte wrote:While it is not for me to paraphrase masterchief in any way, I took his statement to suggest that the market invariably supports one solution to any issue over a plethora and that inevitably once there is a solution listing 1.5, it will grow to encompass 2.5/3.0 which is ultimately to the detriment of the JED.

That's a fair rendering of what I meant

I think that it is right time top drop 1.5 extensions. Why? Just because there are no support for that Joomla version anymore (??).

Joomla should really make a BIG anouncement that there will NOT be any future updates to 1.5, or have they done that? I have just read few times that support will end (and that time have changed few times).

Now there are lot of users that does not know what is the situation with Joomla 1.5 (I have a hint, but count me in), will someone fix vunerabilities if something is found? It seems that there are no support for it anymore but why no clear announce about it? Simple: "Support for Joomla 1.5.x has ended and there will NOT be any future updates for it!"

Joomla should also point out the benefits of moving forward. Ofcourse there are lot of talking about new features but the reality is that many of Joomla users doesn´t need those new features and every change is is bad because of learning curve.

There are only 3 benefits that will be important for all Joomla users and those are: security, security and security. That is the point what Joomla should point out more clearly.

About dropping support for 1.5 extensions in JED:

-I´m sure dropping support for 1.5 extensions will ingrease migration to Joomla 2.5 or 3.0 which is the right direction and it will happen very fast
-I hope Joomla doesn´t give 1.5 extension information to any other 3rd party, because it is important to move forward
-It will tell developers that it is the time to code:)

masterchief wrote:As you can see, Joomla 1.5 still accounts for over 80% of our downloads.

With that logic it has also been a wrong decision to remove the Joomla 1.5 download from: http://www.joomla.org/download.html
And maybe we should turn back the clock and pick up full support of Joomla 1.5. What? A new J3.0.4 on the horizon? No, people use Joomla 1.5, so lets put our time in J1.5.27.

If Joomla has dropped support and development on Joomla 1.5, this should be clear on all level of joomla.org, including the JED.

We perhaps do not wish to conflate the two issues of what the status of J1.5 is, with potentially handing over the J1.5 listings in the JED to a third party.
Yes, J1.5 is so last year and that should be made clear. Our effort and vision is to the future which is J2.5/J3.
We also cannot ignore the large installed user base of J1.5, many of which will never see J2.5/J3 regardless of how rosy a picture we paint of the future.
For some time to come residual J1.5 is going to be with us. We don't need to support it directly but we should equally not try to put a pillow over Granny's head while she sleeps because we need the spare room.

abernyte wrote:For some time to come residual J1.5 is going to be with us. We don't need to support it directly but we should equally not try to put a pillow over Granny's head while she sleeps because we need the spare room.

Instead killing granny so silent, we need to get that stinky pillow away and give her a little push to change that old pillow to new one, that her neck doesn´t hurts so much.. First night with the new pillow could be difficult but after that it is much better.

Without any official support to 1.5 there are really no idea to keep it alive in any way.

nonumber wrote: With that logic it has also been a wrong decision to remove the Joomla 1.5 download from: http://www.joomla.org/download.html
And maybe we should turn back the clock and pick up full support of Joomla 1.5. What? A new J3.0.4 on the horizon? No, people use Joomla 1.5, so lets put our time in J1.5.27.

If Joomla has dropped support and development on Joomla 1.5, this should be clear on all level of joomla.org, including the JED.

It's quite unhelpful to suggest things you know I don't mean. I've said my piece and tried to back it up with reasonable argument. Unfortunately it doesn't appear that the courtesy is being returned. No point in labouring my opinion.

I'll just finish with, no, you can't pass the data relating to my listings that you have in digital form onto any third party without asking for my consent first.

As a user of extensions and a member of the Joomla community I have several questions ...
Given 1.5 is no longer supported
Given 1.5 extensions are no longer supported in JED
Given JED is planning to not have 1,5 listings

1. Then why would JED want to release 1.5 listings data to a 3rd party ?
2. Why have a 3rd party maintain listings that JED no longer want to keep in their listings ?
3. Joomla is supported by volunteers are the JED team volunteers
4. How will it effect Joomla users if the 3rd party is a commercial concern ?
5. What will happen to Joomla's reputation when 1.5 sites get hacked if the 3rd party puts commercial consideration before security or because 1.5 is no longer supported ?

Surely as 1.5 is no longer supported then if 1.5 extensions are not listed in JED then no 3rd party should officially list them. But by giving listing details to a 3rd party surely JED are deeming the 3rd party listings as official listings of a non supported version ?

Why not leaving 1.5 extensions like that and add more option to the JED site which allow users/visitors to see only what they want to see?
For example: I want the JED system display only Joomla 2.5 and Joomla 3.0 extensions, so I turn off some switches (somewhere on the site) and I no longer see 1.5 extensions.

Why not default the display to 2.5 and 3.0 extensions only and allow people to optionally display 1.5 extensions with a checkbox. The checkbox could even provide a disclaimer that all 1.5 extensions will no longer be supported by Joomla or the extension developer.

I think there is probably a conflict of interests here between the end users and the extension developers and Joomla team. Joomla \ extension Developers no longer wish to support 1.5 as it's an extra headache supporting it with 2.5 and 3.0, this is completely understandable.

However there are end users who, for whatever reason, are not in a position to upgrade yet. If somebody has a fully operational 1.5 site that has no benefit of upgrading and they want to install a small extension to show a map or something then why should they have this choice? As long as they have the understanding that if the extension doesn't work there will be no support there shouldn't be a problem.

I'm all for moving forward and I stand by the devs and the Joomla team on that one, however I disagree with simply dropping 1.5 extensions from the database.

To be slightly critical, it's hard enough finding certain resources sometimes with Joomla, the last thing you need is a seperate site \ location for 1.5 extensions.

There is also a huge number of people using IE 6 but Microsoft clearly dropped support for it.

That's actually incorrect as per Wikipedia.

Microsoft has themselves, despite admitting to some of its many flaws, stated that they will support IE6 until Windows XP SP3 support is removed, meaning IE6 will be officially supported until 2014, 13 years after its release. However they have now started their own campaign to encourage users to stop using IE6.

Note the word encourage and not forcefully remove.

EDIT:- Just another couple of examples and note this isn't flaming but maybe just thoughts others haven't considered.

Looking at the FLEXIcontent product it has 175096 views, it's currently only marked for Joomla 1.5. I believe, from what I have read, they are still working on a 2.5 version. At what point of stability a product needs to be to add the magic 2.5 icon I'm not really sure. As it stands though this product will loose a presence in the directory. So I guess it's down to the developers of that product to update their listing, but what if somebody is still working on a 2.5 version that isn't ready to be listed yet? They will lose all their existing reviews and credibility.

Second example, how about non supported 1.5 products that developers are willing to take on as new projects, (extensions and forks). Many a time have I seen a developer state that he wanted an extension but couldn't find one for 2.5 so he has re-written a previous 1.5 one. Without seeing what was previous available may kill off such a thing.

Just a couple of things to consider.

nonumber wrote:

masterchief wrote:As you can see, Joomla 1.5 still accounts for over 80% of our downloads.

With that logic it has also been a wrong decision to remove the Joomla 1.5 download from: http://www.joomla.org/download.html
And maybe we should turn back the clock and pick up full support of Joomla 1.5. What? A new J3.0.4 on the horizon? No, people use Joomla 1.5, so lets put our time in J1.5.27.

If Joomla has dropped support and development on Joomla 1.5, this should be clear on all level of joomla.org, including the JED.

I don't think anyone here has an issue with removing the unsupported versions of Joomla from the downloads page. But keep in mind that site integrators will be maintaining millions of Joomla 1.5 sites.

I wonder for those folks if we could simply have a new area with "unsupported Joomla versions" listed so that one could easily see if a J1.5 (or J1.0) version exists. Developers could then choose to continue to list these versions or not.

It might also be of interest that Wordpress lets folks check compatibility of plugins all the way back to WP 2.8.6.

Is there a reason to not list J1.5 compatibility if it's clear that the versions are unsupported and the developer has the opportunity to deselect this in their listings?