An open letter to developers of commercial extensions...

[dubois]

well my scripts are pretty simple, i'm not afraid of bugs, on the other side i'm more afraid of new APIs as the online documentation leaves a lot to be desired.

i'm sure the new politic of releasing a new version every 6 months will quickly [* spam *] out many old and bloated extensions, think Virtuemart for instance, who's gonna rewrite it to run on J1.8 or J1.9 ?

said that, in my opinion all these changes are completely irresponsible.
the average client who invested money in custom development is not going to throw away his site and fork out thousands of dollars to upgrade to the latest joomla flavour, redesign the whole site and rewrite his previous custom scripts (ie : payment gateways).

here people talk already about joomla 2.0 but one of my former clients is still running joomla 1.0.13 with a bridge for OScommerce, go figure.

i mean i seriously wonder if the core devs have any connection with the real world, sometimes it seems they're living in a bubble and joomla is just their "vanity" showcase project.

[chrisguk]

I don't think we should criticise the core devs any more than we like our users to criticise our work. Anyway, as an extension developer, bugs and incompatibilities in Joomla are the least of your worries. The worst problem by far is users. One user wrote to me recently, regarding a free extension, "... you have to set it to commercial if the support isnt for free". Those were his exact words. Yes, many of them truly, honestly believe that we are obliged to provide free support for free extensions. For commercial extensions, some users think that for a few dollars we are obliged to provide full customisation to their bespoke requirements, personal tuition on our product and every other aspect of Joomla and their hosting environment, fix their template and css problems, etc, etc, etc. It's the users who are living in a bubble with no connection to reality. I can live with the core devs doing things I don't quite agree with. It's the users who will eventually drive me to give up on Joomla!

[Nick Savov]

well my scripts are pretty simple, i'm not afraid of bugs, on the other side i'm more afraid of new APIs as the online documentation leaves a lot to be desired.

i'm sure the new politic of releasing a new version every 6 months will quickly [* spam *] out many old and bloated extensions, think Virtuemart for instance, who's gonna rewrite it to run on J1.8 or J1.9 ?

said that, in my opinion all these changes are completely irresponsible.
the average client who invested money in custom development is not going to throw away his site and fork out thousands of dollars to upgrade to the latest joomla flavour, redesign the whole site and rewrite his previous custom scripts (ie : payment gateways).

here people talk already about joomla 2.0 but one of my former clients is still running joomla 1.0.13 with a bridge for OScommerce, go figure.

i mean i seriously wonder if the core devs have any connection with the real world, sometimes it seems they're living in a bubble and joomla is just their "vanity" showcase project.

Wow, your opinion is uninformed and "completely irresponsible". Please re-read my comment.

[Nick Savov]

So that I am more help to you, I'll actually respond to each of your comments.

well my scripts are pretty simple, i'm not afraid of bugs, on the other side i'm more afraid of new APIs as the online documentation leaves a lot to be desired.

Sure, documentations is not perfect, but it is good. You can help to improve it though. Joomla is run by all volunteers. So the people that write the documentation are volunteers and I think they are doing a very good job.

i'm sure the new politic of releasing a new version every 6 months will quickly [* spam *] out many old and bloated extensions, think Virtuemart for instance, who's gonna rewrite it to run on J1.8 or J1.9 ?

Your understanding of the new 6 month releases is very flawed. You assume that each 6 months extensions will majorly have to be rewritten every 6 months and that's simply not so. 1.7 as I said before is a direct upgrade of 1.6 and right now about 99% of extensions work in 1.7 as they did in 1.6 even though they are "1.6 native". Some extensions did break, for example community builder and Easyblog. Easyblog 1.7 native was released a day after 1.7 was released and community builder has their 1.7 native version ready as well. So your "doomsday" prediction is quite dubious at this point.

As for Virtuemart it's not 1.6 native. It's only 1.5 native and in order to get it to 1.6/1.7 it will have to be rewritten extensively, however that was BEFORE the 6 month release cycle.

said that, in my opinion all these changes are completely irresponsible.
the average client who invested money in custom development is not going to throw away his site and fork out thousands of dollars to upgrade to the latest joomla flavour, redesign the whole site and rewrite his previous custom scripts (ie : payment gateways).

As I said, your comments are uninformed and "completely irresponsible". 1.6 to 1.7 was a "one-click upgrade":
http://docs.joomla.org/Upgrading_1.6.5_to_1.7

We hope to expect the same for 1.8 (or maybe it will be called 2.0)

here people talk already about joomla 2.0 but one of my former clients is still running joomla 1.0.13 with a bridge for OScommerce, go figure.

That was BEFORE the 6 month release cycle. The 6 month release cycle will hopefully make situations like that relatively obsolete.

i mean i seriously wonder if the core devs have any connection with the real world, sometimes it seems they're living in a bubble and joomla is just their "vanity" showcase project.

Looks like they are more connected to the present than you are and they are equally concerned about not repeating mistakes of the past as you are.

Have you even used Joomla 1.6 and tried upgrading to 1.7? It's pretty obvious that you haven't and I would suggest that you do

I hope this helps!

Kind regards,
Nick

[dubois]

@chrisguk :

along with other positions i also worked in tech support in my past life for some fortune-50 companies and the problems with customers were pretty much the same, no matter if hardware, software, or network related.

the only effective solution was to state clearly what king of support the company was offering, meaning how much time (in hours), in which time range (office hours ? 24x7 ?), for which specific product, etc

despite all this, users always abused of the system, complained in any form including calling names, sent nasty emails to us and to review web sites, asked for refunds, for replacements, for spare parts, for onsite tech reformatting their PC and other foolish ideas i won't even mention.

ironically, the only serious ones were the ones paying expensive support packs and the ones dealingh with mission critical software and hardware equipment, never had troubles in these cases as you always deal with computer literate techs or consultants.

joomla users : i'm afraid they're quite rock bottom, second only to wordpress users.

for intance eventually i would like to offer a "quickstart" to download in the future, as they do with commercial templates, but wait a minute .. this would translate in endless support questions about installing joomla, logins, passwords, cpanel, hosting, apache, iis, php4, php5 ... it would be a hell and i'm not sure i will ever follow this path.

a friend of mine who sells desktop sharewares for windows claims that the only way is to "just fix the bugs, it's cheaper".

but in my case we're not talking about bugs, we're talking about users asking how to change the css font color, asking what is a section or a category, what you mean for intro text or leading text, no matter if there are pop-ups with help and full documentation, people just don't read anything their attention span is as low as a kid watching MTV and this is fostered by their having paid for the script.

at the cost of losing many potential clients i will write big and clear what kind of support they may expect, which will not be much actually but i prefer to be fully honest.

[dubois]

@nick :

i think we've different standards about what is a good documentation but that's not the big deal nor the show stopper as far as i'm concerned.

unfortunately i can't become a volunteer developer for joomla for the simple reason i fully disagree with their vision and their politics and i simply have no time for all this unless i'm paid for.

so, good to know that 1.8 and 2.0 will not break compatibility, good news ! hope they don't change their mind as they did in the past.

i'm not doing much with 1.7 for the simple reason most of the scripts i use only run on 1.5 at the moment.

i'm not gonna change idea soon about 1.5 vs 1.6, they simply killed the 1.5.xx and to hell with the thousands of developers who now are in a limbo where the scripts they need run on 1.5 but 1.5 will soon become abandonware and clients have rightfully no compelling reason to pay for upgrades unless they get hacked or whatever.

i know pretty well their reasoning and their vanity, they couldn't give a crap about extension developers and templaters, they might even feel a sense of power forcing people into upgrading their code, how sad.

look at the ideas.joomla.org for instance, all they do is saying no to any decent idea reiterating the cms is just a shell, it should be light and barebone and bla bla bla, same story heard since the times of Mambo.

in the meantime drupal has now built-in CCK, comments, and much more, same for wordpress, joomla lagging behind as usual but they fill their mouth saying joomla award winning bla bla bla nr.1 cms bla bla bla get ready for joomla 1.7 bla bla bla revolutionary stunning unbelievable bla bla bla bla

my 2 euro cents.

[chrisguk]

Thanks for the moral support, dubois. It doesn't matter what you write, they either don't read it, or don't care. They still ask for support and still get upset when they don't get it. It's the (very few) really nasty users that are making me reconsider whether to keep beating my head against this particular wall. This, just the other day: "I will be sure to leave a review of the product, your rudness, and unwillingness to help". I'm never rude, I have no reason to be, and it's just not in me. After giving so much of my time to so many people, and doing everything possible to be professional, I find comments like that deeply hurtful. I guess I'm just too sensitive to be an extension developer. I was very naive when I got into this. It sounds as though you are under no illusions and will fare rather better.

[dubois]

i hope so but as i said before it's just too easy for nasty users to troll around and write bad reviews in revenge .. this sort of guys have simply too much time in their hands, should they spend it reading manuals it would be a big step forward...

another options for your free extensions is to remove them from download, so that they learn the lesson, clearly stating your reasons.

[ZealousDev]

i hope so but as i said before it's just too easy for nasty users to troll around and write bad reviews in revenge .. this sort of guys have simply too much time in their hands, should they spend it reading manuals it would be a big step forward...

another options for your free extensions is to remove them from download, so that they learn the lesson, clearly stating your reasons.

I can understand your position but really this is the internet, there is a lot of bored people that flood it and really make us web masters money so even tho how much we would like to stick it to em. I don't think commercialization would be a good move long term. The free extensions is what attracts people to joomla, make them $1 each or something so at least it will filter out some of the cheap people as i would be happy to pay for extensions as the money would go to the developer and that would pay for upgrades to make this software better.

But being the supportive community that we are think we just need to suck it up and deal with the noobs or just ignore them. Give help to people who make a attempt to learn not just " OMG this did not work the way i want to CHANGE IT NOW" like we have seen from the topic starter.

Just my 2 cents on the topic

[dubois]

i think commercialization is the ONLY way to go long term, or your project will die soon without any economic return for your time and dedication, take a look at the JED most of the scripts have been updated in early 2010 or even 2009 or 2008.

free extensions only attract bad and pennyless users, let them move to wordpress or whatever else.

if a client can't understand the value of a script solving his need, than he's not even a potential customer but simply a leecher and a waste of time and also a potential trouble maker (bad reviews, trolling in forum...).

freemium can only work if you have huge volumes, not if you're a micro-ISV selling niche scripts for a cms.

working for free for complete strangers you will never ever see in person and that don't pay and barely say thank you simply makes no sense to me.

the OP complaining about commercial devs should first of all ask himself how much is he ready to pay for a script or for a service, anything else comes later.

[ZealousDev]

i think commercialization is the ONLY way to go long term, or your project will die soon without any economic return for your time and dedication, take a look at the JED most of the scripts have been updated in early 2010 or even 2009 or 2008.

free extensions only attract bad and pennyless users, let them move to wordpress or whatever else.

if a client can't understand the value of a script solving his need, than he's not even a potential customer but simply a leecher and a waste of time and also a potential trouble maker (bad reviews, trolling in forum...).

freemium can only work if you have huge volumes, not if you're a micro-ISV selling niche scripts for a cms.

working for free for complete strangers you will never ever see in person and that don't pay and barely say thank you simply makes no sense to me.

the OP complaining about commercial devs should first of all ask himself how much is he ready to pay for a script or for a service, anything else comes later.

I have no issue paying for scripts and developers as i know it will get done quick and right the first time also i support other developers then as one myself i know everyone needs to get paid.

But yea i think this is something that should be up on the next joomla meeting, the filtering of useless people. make them $1 a extension and it will provide funding for developers to sit there and work on the script which would attract a bigger audience.

I been working with SEO and marketing for years and really if joomla would accept it i would throw down 10 grand to take over the project and invest another 10 grand getting it up to scratch to what users want it to be and in the long term the script and community will be better off.

hire full time developers to create more plugins and update the old ones, this idea is gold but not enough execution to take it to the next level.

But slap a cheap price on extensions and still free to download the source but costs to customize it

[chrisguk]

If I could get $1 for every download I would be a very happy developer working full time on extensions. It won't happen. Most users won't even give $0.01.

[Nick Savov]

i'm not gonna change idea soon about 1.5 vs 1.6, they simply killed the 1.5.xx and to hell with the thousands of developers who now are in a limbo where the scripts they need run on 1.5 but 1.5 will soon become abandonware and clients have rightfully no compelling reason to pay for upgrades unless they get hacked or whatever.

i know pretty well their reasoning and their vanity, they couldn't give a crap about extension developers and templaters, they might even feel a sense of power forcing people into upgrading their code, how sad.

look at the ideas.joomla.org for instance, all they do is saying no to any decent idea reiterating the cms is just a shell, it should be light and barebone and bla bla bla, same story heard since the times of Mambo.

in the meantime drupal has now built-in CCK, comments, and much more, same for wordpress, joomla lagging behind as usual but they fill their mouth saying joomla award winning bla bla bla nr.1 cms bla bla bla get ready for joomla 1.7 bla bla bla revolutionary stunning unbelievable bla bla bla bla

my 2 euro cents.

[Mod Note: Removed offending comment]

Many of Joomla's developers are also 3rd party developers and have extensions on the JED (1.5 native extensions).

Where on ideas.joomla.org do they say "no to any decent idea"? Point to me to a specific link where they say that or to any discussion anywhere at Joomla where they say that. I bet you can't find a single discussion where "they" do. You're full of nonsense (I'm really not trying to be mean by saying that; it's simply just true). The number 1 most voted-for idea (automatic core updates) is now in the Joomla core.

[dubois]

@Nick :

you must be new here, or i'm too old, who knows, i use joomla since the days of mambo, and before that i used php nuke and other crap, i heard these discussions a million times already.

since how long wordpress has the auto update core built-in in the cms ? and what about their whole plugin directory accessible from the backend ?

core devs are simply scared of adding new features that would require to be maintained fixed and supported and there's also an obvious conflict of interest as they also sell commercial plugins they don't want to see embedded in the core.

[dubois]

@zealousdev : making the JED a sort of "app store" should have been done from day 1 including for templates, but selling for 1$ would just kill the whole market in my opinon.

what's the price clients pay for the cheapest turn-key joomla web site ? i would say no less than 500$, so why should they get anything for 1$ ? and go see the reviews on the app store, plenty and i mean plenty of users complaining that app xyz is not worth 1$ ... then sell it for 0.5$ and still people will complain over and over ... give it away for free and they will say support is bad or the layout sucks ...

see the market from a business perspective instead : it's the users who need us, not viceversa, i'm a coder, i can pretty much even take a framework and code a barebone custom cms if i want, no need to pay for anything and i'm also a decent designer.

if they have a specific need they must pay : either for the support time it takes to customize and ifne tune a free app, or for the app itself, and it will be always at the very least 10x times cheaper than hiring somebody to get the job done so why are they complaining in the first place ? most of these guys aren't professional users, they are simply kids and students needing a blog or playing with cms and php with too much time in their hands.

making a Pro commercial version of joomla would probably bring joomla to a higher level, call it how you want, Joomla Pro, Joomla Enterprise, whatever ... 100$ download and only commercial addons.

i'm not flaming or trolling, it's some of you guys who are simply in denial or obfuscated by the whole political rants about where jooomla is heading, what is joomla becoming, and bla bla bla

last BS i've read yesterday on people.joomla.org was a coder claiming that commercial devs should collaborate more with each other or form a sort of league so that this would benefit joomla.

[Mod Note: removed insult]

i don't know if he's a core dev or whatever but it's crazy to see there's people really thinking a for profit company should help their competitors for the benefit of a no-profit open source cms.

[Webdongle]

...
but in my case we're not talking about bugs, we're talking about users asking how to change the css font color, asking what is a section or a category, what you mean for intro text or leading text, no matter if there are pop-ups with help and full documentation, people just don't read anything their attention span is as low as a kid watching MTV and this is fostered by their having paid for the script.
....

Yes, the problem is that people think the Content Management System means a 'magic panacea' that will enable them to miraculously be website builders overnight. When they ask about changing the font, it is very difficult to explain to them that they need to learn a lot of skills to do that.

Perhaps the answer comes when consulting with them about what they want for their site. Discussing the information they want to display and how each areas of their business 'nests' with each other. Once the site is built and the Categories set and the menu structure is in place, then a quick 1/2 hour to an hour consultation should be enough.

Within that time you can explain how the categories are laid out to match the areas of their business(which you previously discussed with them). You can explain how to create/edit a document and assign it to a Category and how to connect a menu item to it. You can explain that is the system of Content Management. And if they wish to do more that you can train them in css/php/html etc. Basically that is all that CMS is, the ability to Manage Content.

The documentation in the docs.joomla.org covers everything that is needed for CMS, It also contains info for developers of websites. Many people give their time freely to answer questions on Joomla cms. This is a Joomla forum not a developers forum, yet we also answer non Joomla questions about styling a site with cms. And give (what can only be described) as Tutorials on css and server settings. Both of which are not specific to Joomla but are asked by people who want to work on the design of their Joomla site. Or have problems with the server which again is nothing to do with the site.

If you build sites for your customers and they think that .... Content Management System means a 'magic panacea' that will enable them to miraculously be website builders overnight ... And you don't tell them otherwise ... how can the people who give their free time be expected to teach things that are above the level of understanding of your customers.

If you make the distinction (to your customers) the difference between CMS and website development then methinks many of your problems with them will go away.

[Nick Savov]

@Nick :

you must be new here, or i'm too old, who knows, i use joomla since the days of mambo, and before that i used php nuke and other crap, i heard these discussions a million times already.

since how long wordpress has the auto update core built-in in the cms ? and what about their whole plugin directory accessible from the backend ?

core devs are simply scared of adding new features that would require to be maintained fixed and supported and there's also an obvious conflict of interest as they also sell commercial plugins they don't want to see embedded in the core.

Yes, I am new here. If you've heard these discussions a million times already, you should really learn from those million times and quit using bad arguments.

How long Wordpress has been doing something is irrelevant to the previous argument(s).

Which core developers have commercial plugins that they "don't want embeded in the core"? Come on name some. Name the commercial plugins. Give me a link to any commercial plugins on the JED of core developers.

FYI, the update manager was created by Sam Moffatt. He has a non-commercial extension on the JED for Updating Joomla for 1.5:
http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions ... llers/9332

Plus you still have this to answer:

Where on ideas.joomla.org do they say "no to any decent idea"? Point to me to a specific link where they say that or to any discussion anywhere at Joomla where they say that. I bet you can't find a single discussion where "they" do. You're full of nonsense (I'm really not trying to be mean by saying that; it's simply just true). The number 1 most voted-for idea (automatic core updates) is now in the Joomla core.

[Mod Note: Removed insulting comment]

[dubois]

@webdongle : this is a never ending issue and will never be "fixed", it's not just about php or css or html or cms, i had to endure the same problem when dealing with tech support on hardware, software, and networking.

clients simply expect you to be their developer slave, their aladdin's lamp, their parrot, and finally their dog.

it's simply disgusting to realize the average users are allergic to reading manuals or even a few lines of help documentation.

how can they dream of using a computer without a minimal effort ?

i mean let's make a practical example, a client of mine asked for a custom news modules full of every sort of options, i provided the code and he wanted more features, and he needed all this crap just because he was too dumb to just edit a single css file by himself, then i had to explain what is really a font (he had no clue), how css works, margin, borders, RGB vs CMYK, monitor calibration, bla bla bla ...

but at least i've learnt i'm not gonna do all this anymore even if paid well, enough is enough.

my apps will have a visible disclaimer saying it's up to you to edit the CSS, and frankly i've no interest in offering custom paid CSS wor as a side business nor i'm interested in paid support.

yes, they all think a cms is the panacea, that's why wordpress is so popular i guess.
easy to install, almost ready in few minutes, install a template you like, add some categories, write some BS and you're in business, exactly what newbies want.

first they start with blogger.com, then wordpress.com, the they get a host with wordpress installed, and finally they come to joomla or drupal or whatever.

but, one thing is needing the functions of a real cms (acl, memberhsip, e-commerce), another thing is expecting all this comes as cheap as in wordpress (read : free!) or that they still can do everything they need without html/css at the very least.

you can't drive a car without a driving licence, so why should you use a cms without a minimum knowedge about the technology behind it ?

and once again, why help should be given out for free ? knowledge costs time and money, if you don't want to invest time and money it's up to you but then you must pay somebody to help you or to fix the issues for you, as simple as that.

nothing is free in this world, especially about cms and php ... the success of open source web apps like wordpress and drupal are a disgrace for the software industry, all they do is lowering the bar and creating demand for solutions that are financially unsustainable unless they reach a critical mass of millions of users (the "freemium model").

so how much should i price my script ? 20$ ? 30$ ? 50 ? 100 ? it depends, and i will see how it goes, probably 20-30$ to start, but if you ask me it should be priced at 50 or 100 considering all the money it can save designers and webmasters and considering that you can make a most of a turn key website just with that and its ready made templates and find a clueless client willing to pay a site for 500$ or 1000$.

and still they complain and complain again because 30$ are wow .. 30$ !
i don't get it .. look at the JED there are very complex apps sold for 30-40$, AEC for instance might be one of the most complex of all and guess what some clients complain it's not worth the price as support need to be paid on top and bla bla bla ... well sorry what did they expected for 30 bucks, a complete membership system + payment gateway + integrations ... something like this should be priced 300$ in the real world.

[dubois]

Nick, my vision about technology is 360 degrees, instead as all my other detractors when i point at the moon you look at my finger.

[Nick Savov]

You make such bold claims accusing Joomla's developers about all sorts of things and you have absolutely nothing to back it up with.

[Webdongle]

@webdongle : this is a never ending issue and will never be "fixed", it's not just about php or css or html or cms, i had to endure the same problem when dealing with tech support on hardware, software, and networking.

clients simply expect you to be their developer slave, their aladdin's lamp, their parrot, and finally their dog.

it's simply disgusting to realize the average users are allergic to reading manuals or even a few lines of help documentation.....

I agree with that and find it hard to disagree with the rest of what you say. I give my free time to help in the forums etc. because at the end of it I get a free CMS to use.(I draw the line at Posters who advertise in their sig as web developers then ask basic questions that are not related to Joomla ). The development team get a free cms as a result of their effort. As a result professionals have something they can configure and make money from their developing websites/extensions etc.

That's how the software on Linux servers work. There are people putting in their free time to developing software and as a result professionals can make a living customizing it. Ubuntu and Red hat being two examples.

By such a system we all prevent windows monopolising Servers, Operating Systems and software. This allows individuals to enjoy the Internet at a reasonable price and for professions to make a living without unfair monopolised competition.

Yes there are individuals and small business that misinterpret the word free. As well as those who don't want to pay the going price. But one gets that in all areas of business. The knack (if there is a knack) is to find the customers that are willing to pay a fair price for a 'fair days work'. Perhaps that means finding customers that want a service but don't want to get involved in the process ?

What makes things more difficult where Joomla is concerned is that Joomla is free. Many small minded people can't understand why they have to pay when something is free. Finding the customers that understand the difference is difficult but can be done.

On top of that, the fact that there are changes in Joomla does make things a little more difficult. But 'by evolution not revolution are all things accomplished in permanence'. IMHO all we can really do is a little bit at a time and hope that all the little pieces add up to something worthwhile.

[Nick Savov]

@ooffick, yikes, I don't think I wrote anything that was insulting. Nothing was intended to be mean at all and all of it was simply in response to bad arguments. However, better left edited if it could be "perceived" a different way. My apologies for you having to do extra work and edit out sections.

[dubois]

Nick, you should simply learn to accept constructive criticism.

Most of the old core devs left in disgust, think about it, they must have had their very good reasons isn't it ? or is it just me having a big mouth and making bold claims without providing any bold proof ?

[dubois]

@webdongle : yes but you're opening a can of worm ... core devs hardly like to see that 3rd party devs who give nothing back to the core development (patches, bugfixes, nothing at all) make lots of money on the shoulders of the core devs' free cms.

it's the same scenario in wordpress and that's why some time ago they banned commercial scripts, just a matter of having enough being overmarketed by people who couldn't give a sh.. about wordpress and open source and yadda yadda, just like i do.

and yes, joomla being free is and will always be its double edged sword.
if you give something for free people expect anything else being for free as well, including support.

but now, let's be honest and ask ourselves who of us would have ever paid even 1$ to download joomla ? not many i guess.

being free has always a big hidden price, let's never forget it.

if one of my clients buy my script and have some weird issues and he's completely clueless, well, if i've the time to do it i will ask him to provide me his admin account, log in into his server, see what's going on, and hopefully fix the issue, who knows maybe it takes 5 minutes, maybe it takes 1 hour, but he paid for it and i've a moral obligation on my clients.

try doing the same on the joomla forum .. it's free and all you will get is random rambling or maybe no answers at all or the usual list of links to documentation and bla bla bla, then insist and ask again and they will tell you to fix yourself and read the manual, welcome to open source !

[Nick Savov]

Nick, you should simply learn to accept constructive criticism.

Most of the old core devs left in disgust, think about it, they must have had their very good reasons isn't it ? or is it just me having a big mouth and making bold claims without providing any bold proof ?

I do accept constructive criticism, however your criticism isn't constructive. I'm still waiting for those links of those imaginary discussions by the way.

[GoDigital2020]

daviator thank you for initiating this discussion on the mode of practices from the side of developers and yes, from the side of end-users. chrisguk, I try to develop some socially useful sites, not receiving payment, but pay for the extensions. Recently, a long tested extension, advanced version, claiming any number of sites, I paid and downloaded. But when I installed, not working! I opened the extension folder. It is empty! I contacted for the support; promptly responded, but not responding on the issue of 'empty-folders'. The Developer asks the access, so he could directly fix it. That is not a good practice. We need to get the steps, so equipping the end-user; thus not to waste the time of the developers. I upgraded the access level, except the Super User access. Still, the developer indicates that not getting the right access! So, what is the level of access? Now no response for the last 2 weeks! How do we know the integrity of the developers in a win-win sense? May be reviews. Another extension-developer, just copy-paste their forum discussion links, the reading of which may take days and days. With that amount of time and effort, one could develop their own coding skills. Joomla and the extensions are used because it is open-source (so a social or community dimension) and to save coding time and coding skills. I agree that the effort should be honored, but with accountability.