Something to think about? We are unresponsive!

[Soeren]

Hi there,

I recently came across this "review" of VirtueMart on the Joomla! Extension Site:
http://extensions.joomla.org/component/option,com_mtree/task,viewlink/link_id,129/Itemid,35/#rev-3970

pixiepie has posted some questions at this forum and has been very unpatient.
I guess he's making money with setting up site with Joomla! for clients and now had to set up a shop with VirtueMart. He ran into problems and was hoping for help at this forum, but he did not receive helpful answers...

All I'm asking: is he epxecting too much? Is Open Source Software automatically connected to good support?

Let me know your opinion about his "review" (pixiepie, that's not a review, you better modify it and stay on topic!)

ciao, Sören

[HulaQueen]

Personally I can say we've been thrilled with the forum. Soeren, and many others here have helped us along the way. We've twice had people we didn't even know working with us for hours on issues (so kind) not even expecting us to contribute to them in any way (we did).

For me I don't expect open source to be perfect, and what I love about it is the sense of community and growth. You could never suggest a change to a regular software company, talk with others about it, and have it easily included in the next release (not in my world anyway). I love the flexibility and joy that the sense of personal ownership gives us all in open source.

I do also expect of myself and others to really look into a problem, search the forum, and be patient and kind. People on the forum are not paid staff responsible for answering each and every question. That is never my expectation (although often my hope .

I suppose though where the stress comes in is when you're relying on a work in progress (all software is, but open source is often more so) and having problems that are affecting you in production. I would love it to be perfect... but understand that it's not. (Sort of like any relationship - you love someone no matter what).

Anyhow... while I can understand the frustrations some experience, I also know I get the warm fuzzies being part of an environment where eveyone is working together to create something as magnificent as VirtueMart.

Thank you so Soeren and all here who make this a great place!!!

Cheers!
Hula

[Virtue Monkey]

If they think the community at Virtuemart are unresponsive, they obviously have never tried paid support...

Seriously though, Soeren, Cipher, Gregdev and the too numerous to count people who've helped me here are my hero's. I think it's good to be open to improvement, but I can honestly say I've found the VM forums the most helpful boards I've been on (and I've been on a few).

Like HulaQueen said above, I can understand pixiepie's frustration when your livelihood is being stymied by some thorny problem that no one's found and answer to yet. My experience though is that people respond much better to specific detail, politeness and a willingness to do what you can to explore the problem publicly yourself.

Sometimes though at the end of the day, sadly it can just be a case of no-one having seen your exact problem before. At the end of the day, you do what you can to make it right, be greatful to those who've helped and accept that at the end of the day it's no one's responsibility to fix a problem but ourselves.

[Stefan Korth]

well... I can understand where some of the frustration comes from. It should be one of the goals for near future to have a comprehensive Tutourial that handles most of the Issues newbies have. It saves us all much stress, though I understand that fo a work-in-progress any tutourial will be as well, a work-in-progress. Anyhow, at the moment, without the Help of someone who already mastered VM, it is not possible for a Webdesigner to get VM running without stumbling into several big issues that require Help by the forum, but 90% of those could have been taken care of either by a programmer himself (by making the software more self-explaining, which should be the high-set Goal of any Software...) or a Help-file or Tutourial.

So yes, indeed there are nice people here spending a lot of time to help others solve their problems. My point is that many problems should not be problems at all, or at least been taken care of somewhere.

As I run a shop with about 150 Items, I am also not so amused that the CSV-Import is not working at all. How am I supposed to keep my products up-to-Date? This is not just a Bug, it is a main feature that is literally missing which -if known in first place- would have prevented me from actually using VM in first place. But noone told me that yes, there is possibility to import CSV Data, but hence it does not work propperly and will destroy my product list as soon as I reload my Items... booh. With all respect for the people who code VM, but how comes that such a thing can slip through and make it into a final release? Why not be honest and claim it to be in Beta-Test still... I now have someone coding me an editable table view in PHP, so I am at least able to change and upload those changes on several products at the same time...

[FrankA]

Yes and No, I have some good responses and some no-responses. I am only using VM for it's catalogue functionality http://www.scotlandsglass.co.uk/cms/ and currently have nearly 1600 items. There was a major problem with array handling causing memory problems but a friendly PHP programmer found the cause and provided a simple fix which I passed back here. Hopefully, it will hang together as I head fo 50,000 items.
My own commercial background was in IT development but with 6 figure budgets and I often found commercial software houses lacking in the support department. Of course, when you have to pay CMS consultants €200+ an hour you expect good results... but even they can take weeks to find a solution, which then cost more to get fixed.

But you cannot compare the OS and high end commercial world very fairly. A more down to earth comparison would be with software that is paid for and very widely used. How about.... Windows, now has anyone ever got real support from Microsoft.

My exposure to the OS community is Joomla! Virtumart, Rockettheme and Joomlaware. I have found all lacking in customer support qualities - but heck, I am not complaining (too loud) the software warns you it is not completely stable or suitable for mission critical..blah. But it works, the VM catalogue software is the only part of the Joomla environment with well developed category control. Cost is low, I bought the Joomla book, subscribed to Rocket Theme, bought a subscription component from Joomlaware for another site www.glasszoo.info that also uses VM as a catalogue. Despite being a subscriber only site it is still an information/knowledge sharing site.

One thing is for sure, having been tossed on the scrap heap for being too old, I could not have afforded to create these sites without the power of Joomla and Virtuemart. I do understand the problems and that less developers get attracted to this type of development. But for me at least, you guys have made it possible to bring knowledge into the public domain. Several glassmakers have benefitted, in turn, from being featured on these sites which try to draw as much attention to people creating glass now as those from the past. Other researchers are being invited into these projects as they base I am building matures... So it is making a difference to peoples lives even from a non-commercial viewpoint.

One practical solution may be to split the paycart function from the catalogue and stick a ten Euro fee on to the paycart. That provides good funding for the project and could allow a small team to work at it full time. It is notable that all of the other components aimed at bringing in money for the site, do levy a fee. You could always waive the fee for non-commercial users and 3rd World countries.

[PINC]

I am new to VirtueMart, but what I see is that "regular" people are contributing more than the "developers". Maybe I am wrong, but it seems that once a solution is found by a developer, they don't really bother to take the time to post it for all to benefit. I recently posted a solution that helped me get rid of about 17 validation errors and although I am sure someone out there knows it already, I posted it in the hopes that it will help at least one person.   

[TomC]

I am brand new to both Joomla and VirtueMart.   I will say that I am very encouraged by the possibilities offered by the pairing insofar as an affordable eCommerce solution (in a virtual ocean of eCommerce packages - some very expensive, some not).

Many of the live shops I have perused through are quite impressive - many of them demonstrating a creative and ambitious approach toward customization of both Joomla and VirtueMart toward offering more than the usual-and-customary "out of the box" cart. This is both encouraging and inspiring.

The one thing that I wonder about is where the creators/developers of VirtueMart see and/or want the project to go from here.  I am fully aware of what "open source" means - and I do see that there are those out there who are actively contributing toward further enhancing VirtueMart's scope and capabilities.  Nevertheless, I hope and wonder if this will continue at a healthy pace.


For those of you who read this thread from this point forward  . . . where do you see and/or hope VirtueMart will be in the near future?  Do you see further development toward VirtueMart becoming much more than a "basic" option for eCommerce solutions (i.e. being a viable professional option as well)? If so, what will it take to realize this?


TOM

[pixiepie]

Wow!!! Just ran into this thread.. It's been a long time since I've checked in on this forum.. Nice of you to call me on the carpet Sören.. I would have replied MUCH sooner if I had known about this post..

But first off I have to say this: ***clears throat*** HE is a SHE thank you very much..

pixiepie has posted some questions at this forum and has been very unpatient.

Next.. I very much stand by what I said in my "review"..  For the record Sören, I was not impatient at all. I was also not the ONLY person who expressed a similar opinion about this support forum.. Others who reviewed VirtueMart as well as others on this forum have expressed similar opinions.. (Case in point, some of the responses to THIS thread)

When I chose VirtueMart, I was hopeful about the product. Because of my client's goals for her site, I decided that VirtueMart was the RIGHT solution.. So I made it work.. I was very resourceful, and any questions that went unanswered here (and there were quite a few) I found a workaround solution for.. For the record, the problems I had were not NEW, unique or unusual.. In fact what I found more often than not was that others had posted the SAME questions repeatedly and NEVER got an answer!!! I am also not new to support forums.. I know the drill.. You SEARCH for your answer BEFORE posting your questions.. I ALWAYS follow this approach..

Please Sören, I invite you to look back over my "impatient" posts.. You'll see I either resolved my own issues, or another forum member helped me resolve the issue.. If I thought my answer/solution would be of help to others, I posted my solutions on the forum. Yes, there were a few issues that NEVER got resolved.. One of which you and I discussed in one topic, and when I explained what was happening, you never responded back.. (http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=19373) By then I was used to this, and I didn't let it stop me... So I once again found a workaround to the issue.

making money with setting up site with Joomla! for clients and now had to set up a shop with VirtueMart

Well it's been over 1 year and my client's site is still going strong.. Thanks for asking!

All I'm asking: is he epxecting too much? Is Open Source Software automatically connected to good support?

In my experience, the answer for me has been YES.. I'll give you some examples:
Joomla forum: This forum is LOADED with imensely helpful community member and forum leaders
phpBB forum: This is also FULL of helpful forum members and helpful forum leaders
Zen Cart forum: This forum has been EXTREMELY helpful, with a responsive community of forum members as well as forum leaders..

I have NO ILLUSIONS about what open source software IS or ISN'T.. I was just a little shocked that unlike other open source packages I've worked with successfully, that this one didn't have the same kind of community that I could be CONFIDENT I could find answers in if I needed them..

The definition of a review is:

re·view
v. re·viewed, re·view·ing, re·views

1. To write or give a critical report on (a new work or performance, for example).
2. To write critical reviews, especially for a newspaper or magazine.
3. An inspection or examination for the purpose of evaluation.

I assume you don't consider my "review" to be a review because I was critical in what I wrote.

(pixiepie, that's not a review, you better modify it and stay on topic!)

I didn't expect for you to like what I wrote.. In fact I'm NOT surprised that you don't agree with what I wrote.. However, not liking what I wrote doesn't stop it from being a review..  I'll admit that what I had HOPED for was that you would UNDERSTAND why I wrote it since I was not expressing a LONE opinion.. I guess I was wrong.. No worries.. We'll just have to agree to disagree..