After 6 years of development and community building, no, we have not met our golden limit yet. Ofcourse the critic here is valid for our current release today, but, as it has been pointed out, it is now over 2 years old.
A release that is over 2 years old that continually gains live shops, contributions, and community members on a daily basis, may not be ideal to todays programming standards yet continues to grow. How is this possible?
The way the current release has been programmed as that it works as it should out of the box. This is what has made it so attractive for production use. This is what has allowed actual store owners, not hardcore developers, to get involved with the code that is powering their online store solution, to join a community consisting of other store owners, and contributing ideas and modules to benefit everyone involved.
It's not the dessert developers are hoping for, and the critic here is nothing we have already acknowledged ourselves.
The current release met its potential limit as any framework improvements would break compatibility with the many existing contributions available. That is why our next release is basically a rewrite - a rewrite consisting of the feedback provided by the community with a framework that meets todays programming standards. A new framework that provides even more possibilities of what feature add-ons a contribution can provide compared to the current release, with already over 3000 contributions available.
Open Source shouldn't be about someone defending the work they do, so I sincerely hope our upcoming release appeals to the hardcore developers currently critizing us;-)
We've started a sponsorship program for the osCommerce project where our community members can make a financial contribution to the project and get back some additional benefits in return.
This increases ones awareness in our community otherwise only possible through making contributions available (development work) or being an active supporter in the community forums.
The finances gained from this are then put towards the fees involved in hosting such a project, organizing team meetings, and are also spread throughout the team when it is possible to do so.
The important thing we keep in mind is to not provide a must-have feature for community sponsors, but to make it easier for them to do things also normal community members can achieve, and to always give back to the community when asking for something.
For the corporate side (partners), placing advertising banners throughout your site would also help, but obviously only when the advertising content is of use to your community!
Sometimes partners come to you, and sometimes you must go to them;-)
Slashdot Mirror
After 6 years of development and community building, no, we have not met our golden limit yet. Ofcourse the critic here is valid for our current release today, but, as it has been pointed out, it is now over 2 years old.
;-)
A release that is over 2 years old that continually gains live shops, contributions, and community members on a daily basis, may not be ideal to todays programming standards yet continues to grow. How is this possible?
The way the current release has been programmed as that it works as it should out of the box. This is what has made it so attractive for production use. This is what has allowed actual store owners, not hardcore developers, to get involved with the code that is powering their online store solution, to join a community consisting of other store owners, and contributing ideas and modules to benefit everyone involved.
It's not the dessert developers are hoping for, and the critic here is nothing we have already acknowledged ourselves.
The current release met its potential limit as any framework improvements would break compatibility with the many existing contributions available. That is why our next release is basically a rewrite - a rewrite consisting of the feedback provided by the community with a framework that meets todays programming standards. A new framework that provides even more possibilities of what feature add-ons a contribution can provide compared to the current release, with already over 3000 contributions available.
Open Source shouldn't be about someone defending the work they do, so I sincerely hope our upcoming release appeals to the hardcore developers currently critizing us
We've started a sponsorship program for the osCommerce project where our community members can make a financial contribution to the project and get back some additional benefits in return.
;-)
This increases ones awareness in our community otherwise only possible through making contributions available (development work) or being an active supporter in the community forums.
The finances gained from this are then put towards the fees involved in hosting such a project, organizing team meetings, and are also spread throughout the team when it is possible to do so. The important thing we keep in mind is to not provide a must-have feature for community sponsors, but to make it easier for them to do things also normal community members can achieve, and to always give back to the community when asking for something.
For the corporate side (partners), placing advertising banners throughout your site would also help, but obviously only when the advertising content is of use to your community!
Sometimes partners come to you, and sometimes you must go to them
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-hpdl