Would you pay for VM?

[dorjano]

Dear VM users. To clarify in first place. I'm not an active or core developer of VM. Since I love VM but I hate it in the same way I'm trying to figure it out if there is a chance or a market if you wish for a VM PRO version.
We all know what a huge endeavor is to write such a piece of software like VM and we all should be grateful to developers working on VM. But you probably noticed that VM is not coping  anymore with a modern eShops. So the basic idea here is to test if the temperature is right for a payed, let me call it PRO, Virtuemart. This could be a good, or bad, or anyway, a signal for the grate developers to take appropriate steps.

Thanks for answering a poll!
D.

[dorjano]

Please cast your vote!!

[jenkinhill]

Not much point. If I understand the open source licencing system correctly, it would not be legal to sell a software package based on GPL.

VM can handle just about all "modern eShop" requirements either out of the box or by the use of additional modules ot plugins, or some addtional programming.

[dorjano]

@ Kelvyn

You get it wrong! OpenSource doesn't mean free! You are wrong again; VM DOES NOT "...handle just about  all modern eShop requirements". Yes it could but it doesn't. It really lack some must have features modern shops have. Please look around (Magento, Interspire,...) not to mention Amazon and other good eShops.
Again, VM could have the needed features but there are no programmers willing to make them. Well and it's quite obvious why. That's the purpose of this topic; to find out if there is a "market" for a full featured PRO version of VM - a commercial version.
I'm quite surprised that you guys from DEV are not doing this market research. I know that sooner or later you all will realize that your time is valuable and you can not dedicate your life for free more than that. And this is not enough for a serious e-commerce tool.

[craigieb]

I would have to disagree with you, dorjano. To site Amazon in comparison to Virtuemart is like chalk and cheese.

Virtuemart provides a productive platform that allows anyone the chance to put up a successful web shop. I've got one that takes over 6000 visitors a month - I doubt the advanced features of Magento would make any difference to my turnover nor do I think the benefits would justify the cost of a dedicated server to run it, nor the time spent learning how to modify it (I have read it is exteremly complex).

If you are running a SERIOUS ecommerce platform then you are going to have to invest serious time and money, for not only technology but people, storage, logistics, everything. I see virtuemart as a means to take you in that direction, so whilst for some it may be great Ecommerce Solution for their business, for others it may become the starting point for something much bigger and in time they will out grow Virtuemart - but Virtuemart will have been the platform that led them into serious ecommerce!

Just my tuppence.

Regards
Craig

[dorjano]

I do respect your opinion Craig. But as you pointed out, I could start with a VM learn it, customize it and do some money. But sooner or later as a user/owner I will encounter a wall. a wall of "Unable of doing this and that". Therefore I will be forced to change to another e-store. Which by the way is a hell of a work, because of different ways programmers approach e-store functionality. Actually it' almost impossible (with a reasonable cost) swap to another e-store software. Imagine having 300+ or couple of thousands articles transferring them to let's say Magento?! Impossible (almost)!
So it's legitimate for a guy who start with VM to grow and have more request from his e-shop. So VM should grow too. Other way he will bi stuck with some, let's say good starting e-shop but mediocre all together e-shop.
Believe me it's very very difficult to swap e-commerce software. And when I'm looking for a good shop, and everyone should too, I'm looking for a good overall architecture, a lot's of features and a visible future. Meaning that the programmers commit themselves to develop it, maintain it and revile the future plans.
Remember a usual price for a e-commerce site (just software) is less then 10%!!
So again, the original idea behind this topic is to find out if there is a willingness to make a Joomla! based e-commerce for 21 century and if there are someone to pay for it.
That's it.

Cheers,
Dorjano

[Erik P]

>> Again, VM could have the needed features but there are no programmers willing to make them.

VM has one major problem, that prevents the emergence of an active extension repository: the notorious lack of hooks. Myself, I still keep asking for the following hooks:

• onOrderStatusChanged
• onCartProductAdded
• onCartProductRemoved

This should allow extension developers to create extension plugins such as promotion tools, invoicing, sms notifications, and so on. We need more hooks than those, of course, but I would already be very happy if the core VM team would agree to those three.

It is not VM itself that is supposed to compete feature-by-feature with other webshops, but the VM Extension Repository. Just like the core Joomla team, the core VM team is way too small to provide all the features that users could possibly want.

I have blogged in the link below about the issues in software architecture, that are holding back the emergence of a massive and feature-rich Virtuemart Extension Repository, similar to the Joomla Extension Directory, in which users can download extensions to VM for free or for a fee:

http://sankuru.biz/en/jobs.html?start=6

I am also trying to convince the Virtuemart core team that EXTENSIBILITY is the key to success and not rewriting experiments, that will only lead to cosmetic improvements. The MVC design pattern, no matter how commendable, is really not a goal in itself. The key word is, and will always remain: EXTENSIBILITY.

[dorjano]

Erik P
you are absolutely right!!! But for VM repository there is one:
http://extensions.virtuemart.net/
Done with SOBI2... but still something is better than nothing, right?!

[Erik P]

But for VM repository there is one: http://extensions.virtuemart.net/

The big success in VM extensibility is: payment method plugins. You find them everywhere across the internet, to the satisfaction of the many users, who install them.

And indeed, many of them seem to be registered with The Virtuemart Extension Directory too.

Done with SOBI2... but still something is better than nothing, right?!

It's definitely good enough :-)

What is sorely lacking today, are cart and order-status-change plugins.

These plugins must today be created as source code hacks, and cannot readily be re-distributed, simply because VM does not define the necessary hooks for them.

We need more support for pluggability!

Just like the core Joomla team, the core VM team is simply too small to provide all possible users with all possible plugins they may ever want. We need more plugin types to feed the Virtuemart Extension Directory with new features and finally start taking on the competition from Magento.

[dorjano]

...

We need more support for pluggability!

Just like the core Joomla team, the core VM team is simply too small to provide all possible users with all possible plugins they may ever want. We need more plugin types to feed the Virtuemart Extension Directory with new features and finally start taking on the competition from Magento.

You are spot on! I miss that too. It's quite annoying rewriting the core of VM because of lack of a proper plugin mechanism. And your are right too, on a lack of willing programmers. If anything Joomla is good because of it's huge programmers base willing to write extensions of every kind.