Are these forums meant for soliciting it work?

[TTT]

Hi there open source folks.
I have what may be a dumb question for whoever wants to respond.
(and if you happen to be one of those folks whose primal response to such matters is to take it personally and say something like RTFM, etc.) please, ignore everything else about my question, and try to accept the fact that...

I do not mean any dis-respect to anyone here, especially the developers of any open source software. I appreciate what you've all done (even though putting some of these things to work,appears to be quite a feat for someone with my level of understanding)

I really, truly mean this sincerely. I came to joomla because I was sent here by someone else, who like myself is interested in open source software for the basic principle that we believe/d, that this is all about (possibly, we are mistaken and/or naive) but I/we understood that this was all about sharing intellectual property in an effort to better the world for everyone.

Again, please understand that this is only a newbies perpsective here, but perhaps out of the masses that might fling arrows from the shodows of cyberspace, maybe someone could just politely and intelligently explain it to me?

The impression I get is that there is a pretty easy to understand and free for all cms (joomla/mambo) which appears to have a pretty friendly and supportive user base. That's cool!

Then there are these very useful add-on's, some of which appear to have a RTFM or, a pay me some money and I'll give you the answer type of user base.
That would be cool too, if it were very plain to new users that this is what they were in for. But somehow, (again...maybe just me) There is this interesting prevelance of information out there (when a newbie does some googling for a shopping cart) for example.... That points to the "easy to use" "great community support" "free" type of things like virtuemart, etc.

But... once it's installed and half working, we realize that there is a shortage of reasonable answers available to our pleas for help to get it working the way we think it's supposed to (based on what we've heard, or been led to believe)

I realize that none of you owe me anything in terms of answering my questions. I could even accept such statements as "hey, it's free, what do you want for nothing?" and that would be fine.
It's just that if I had known up front that the whole idea was to give me a free car without an engine, I might have seriousy considered saving myself a few weeks of screwing around with this and perhaps also saved having annoyed those folks who seem to consider it beneath themselves to answer dorky newbie quaestions.

I don't know how to say any of this without sounding like an ungratefull whining snivelling twit, so I really can't imagine not being bombarded for this... and I'm truly sorry if I offend anyone, it is not intentional.
What I'm trying to point out is this:
Make it clear to us up front that... we are getting a free car but will need to hire a mechanic to make it run.

If you are in the business of providing IT services for an open source product, please consider making that very clear from the get go. If virtuemart or ezstore had been advertized to me as commercial products, with $xxx option for set-up/support fees etc., then that would have been a fair comparison to the other commercial products out there. But to me (a newbie) looking for a shopping cart solution for a small start-up enterprise with little money to spend on such things, I thought... hey, better try these free and apparently easy solutions first,... only to realize that if I had any questions I would have to pay someone who says they can/will fix it, but now if I pay this unknown individual XXX$$$ I now have money out the door and who do I go after if it's not what I feel I have paid for? I realize that in these circles you guru's may all know each other, or each other's work.

Try to imagine this though. I'm a noob. I get this great free thing, can't get it to work, come here & find out that there's a special place to post to hire someone to fix my free thing, go snoop around in there & find offers to fix stuff ranging from a couple hundred to many thousands of dollars, all in response to the same question.

Now you guys might be able to discern between those offers, but I wager that the average newbie cannot. So now I realize that for a simple free shopping cart solution, I can expect to pay between a few hundred and many thousands of dollars, to have one of my problems solved. Wonder how much the next one will cost....

For example: And I hope this doesn't get me a virtual smack in the face....
I installed virtuemart and thought it was the most incredible thing... but, I couldn't get it to work with paypal. So... I came here and asked for help using paypal error as post title. Waited... nothing... thought to myself... must be a boneheaded question so no-ones answering... searched groups & google again... no luck... Read several postings about how easy and simple ezstore is... thought to myself (again a noob) that maybe that's a better fit for me... something simple. So, I delete my virtuemart set-up and download & install this instead.

Now I can't find a manual... do more googling... find a post that says the manual is buried in an obscure place on download site (I say obscure because it's nowhere near anything that says ezstore, or even documentation)... I copy & paste the link from the last guy who couldn't find it...go find it... get it up & running... realize I still just have a joomla site... look through ezstore menu...no ez online offline virtuemart stuff in there... google some more, find post from admin, discover I need to link menu to ezstore... google some more to figure out how that's done.... now I have a joomla site with a link to a shopping cart page... do more googling to find out how to make my homepage open up so it looks like a store and not a cms page with a link to a store... read a post from someone who's trying to do the same thing I am, but he/she has recieved a reply from the admin that that goes something like: explaining such a thing is way beyond the scope of free support, but that they'd be happy to do this for money. No problem. But if that's the whole point in the first place, why the hell waste everyones time? Why not just say so in the beginning?...
that if you are a newbie, idiot, etc. (offended persons fill in the blank here)... That you should either be prepared to purchase support for a pre-stated amount of money, or just go buy a commercial product and stay away from these forums so we don't obviously annoy those of you who are actually doing this for a living.

My dear old grama used to tell me... never lend anyone money... If you want them to have it, just give it to them without expectation of return. I can deal with that.

Again, for those of you who managed to read this as it was intended to be understood, I thank you for your efforts and for your sharing. I'm really just trying to help us both with this post. Mingling commercial and community forums into one site may not be the best advertizing in the long run.
And for those of you who might be thin skinned... please, just try to pretend that you don't know anything about anything (like me) and image how you'd feel if you walked down the same path. I think what you're all doing is great. I just think it needs to be a little more clear.

[shirster]

Hi TTT,

First of all, let me say that I kind of understand how you feel. I started playing with Joomla a couple of months ago and installed VM for the first time 3 weeks ago. Although I've been a graphic designer for many years, I've been self-teaching web design and anything web-related since only last year. Before that, I knew nothing, and I mean NOTHING, about HTML, web hosting, server, web application, whatsoever.

So far, I've built a couple of Joomla test sites and one production site with VM implemented.

And I managed to do all that without any commercial help. All I had were manuals, forums and Google. Most of the time you can get your answers from the forums. And Google is your second best bet. What I'd like to point out though, is that sometimes you'd have to be more patient. After all, you said it yourself, it's free, and you can't expect to have 24/7 support service. Sometimes you question gets answered in minutes, sometimes hours, sometimes days, sometimes weeks. I've just answered someone's question on the Joomla forum, and it was posted in December 2005. I just saw it now, so I couldn't offer my help any earlier. But I answered the question anyway, in case someone else might be interested in it.

So that's just an example. Sometimes you have to wait for months for someone to come along and read your post and give you the answer. But then of course, that's a pretty extreme example.

I saw your PayPal post. It was posted 10 days ago. So it hasn't really been that long. I have posted a couple of questions regarding another shopping cart on another forum which no one has ever answered. In the end (about a month later), I figured it out myself and posted the answer back there in case someone needs it. I think that's how things go. Sometimes you get help, sometimes you don't, but you can't blame anyone for that (I'm not saying you are). If someone helps you out, great, if not, do more Googl'ing and when you figure out the solution, post it back to the forum where others can benefit from your effort.

IMO, both Joomla and VM are pretty simple to install and configure. Remember, I'm a newbie too. I know you said you Google'd, but perhaps you just need to Google harder. Good luck ! 

Take nothing for granted, and always appreciate.

[iqapps1]

Hi

Nice....


Regards
IQAPPS

[shirster]

Hi IQAPPS,

Nice TTT or nice me ?

Hey TTT,

I forgot to add that, after you've installed a component in Joomla it's normal to have to publish it before it shows up on your site. You might wanna re-read everything on the Joomla documentation site if you haven't done so already. 

[iqapps1]

Hi

Both I aggre with you shirster but litle credit I must get to TTT


Regards
IQAPPS

[macallf]

Hi to all,

this is free software and most of the community will offer free help. There is a specific forum post regarding payment methods there, did you search the posts for paypal integration??

Most members will not ask for a fee, but if you require a modification that probably won't be helpful to any other users but yourself expect to make a donation to the person who has taken time to find an answer for you.

Some of my mods are being used by developers who charge their customers to design their site, but I get nothing in return and I'd be surprised if soren receives much that way either!!! Hows that fair for opensource!

If someone asks me to alter a mod for their own needs and offer to pay me, then I will  obviously work on that first. I have, however, never asked someone for a payment when they are genuienly having problems and I can help.

Nor have the developers or forum managers. Most requests for commercial modifications are posted in that post.

I would say that you just have had a bad experience and continue searching the posts within the forum.( I don't now if you are, but use the forum search and not google!).

I do understand what you are saying, but as they say, not everything in life is free!

Mark