What have you done to THANK opencart?

Hi everyone (coders, designers and others)
Everyone of us wants to make sort of money providing enhancement (extensions and templates) for people using opencart.
Although lots of us are making good profit, how many actually thanked opencart for being the reason behind your fat check?
I understand some donated to daniel, but I guess that's not enough.

I see lots of coders/ designers releasing lots of extensions and templates but not even providing anything for free.
Please don't forget that opencart is a free opensource application and also don't forget that the more people using opencart the more chance of them to be your future clients.

People always looking to get free stuff 1st, then cheap stuff 2nd.
If everyone (coders and designers) are giving 10%-20% of what they have released for free to the public as a thank you to opencart and as an encouragement to people to choose opencart for their online store, can you imagine how loaded the extension page will be with free stuff? and how many people will actually consider opencart? And how many of them will be your future client?
If you really think about it, you are actually still making money even by providing free stuff.

Now for other people (non coders/ non designers). You also can help.
You can help by providing tutorials on how to manage/edit/tweak/delete/add/achieve anything you might thing it could be helpful. You will be surprised how many people would love to know how to add categories to the top menu for example.

So lots all say thank you to opencart by providing free stuff to the public - DON'T BE GREEDY.


Thanks for reading

Hey Maansy,

Very well said.

I think another way the coders / designers / etc. could help out the community is to jump on the support forum and help those that need it.

I'm sure the mods would appreciate it too.


Joel.

I totally agree with what's been said here.

From my own perspective, I provided help and support and a few free modules (homepage, events/calendar, news/blog, faq) for 2 years before I added a price tag to anything!

I'm certainly not impressed by the number of people who sign up just to sell something. If you look through the Commercial Contributions sub-forum, you will find a number of "members" whose first (and only) post is to advertise something they want to sell.

I'm new to the idea of open-source so I tend to look for free contributions before purchasing extensions. I am turned off from those which lack support and/or haven't been modified since the Stone Age. I truly appreciate everyone's help and I cannot wait until my site launches.

P.S. I hope you will review it for me!!!

OpenCart Addons wrote:I think another way the coders / designers / etc. could help out the community is to jump on the support forum and help those that need it.

+1

Ohhh! And I guess i'm the nice guy releasing lots of free goodies for everyone

Maansy wrote:Now for other people (non coders/ non designers). You also can help.
You can help by providing tutorials on how to manage/edit/tweak/delete/add/achieve anything you might thing it could be helpful. You will be surprised how many people would love to know how to add categories to the top menu for example.

I have learnt tons from playing with Opencart --> breaking it --> spending hours searching for how to fix it --> feeling an immense sense of wellbeing from applying the fix and getting it mended again etc...

And loads from the usual suspects helping answer questions I have had on the forums, and used several free extensions to liven up my site.

I agree with Maansy's originial post, I would love to give something back.

So, having used vQmod and got to grips with this xml stuff (!) I was intending to put a few (free) scripts I have put together that do small things I have found useful - only to find someone else has already done this... and at a cost of $10-15.

So... my questions is:
Is it fair/reasonable/ethical/moral to put these up in the free contribution thread/extensions section to show up alongside these paid-for contributions; or do I keep my quiet, non-developer, non-coder, shy and retiring head well below the parapit and point newbies in the direction of the various stickies and the free search facility to pay my dues?

If it is entirely your code and you want to give it away for free, then that is your decision.

You may pee off the developer who is selling it for $$$ though.

Generally the ones that are being released for $10 are simple changes, and if you can throw them together for free, I think that would benefit the community as a whole. A developer that is charging for such a simple modification might be annoyed, but if it were me, I would feel unjustified feeling annoyed since hardly any time would have been invested in the first place.

As someone who sells a lot of extensions, I say go for it.

As someone who is creating a website to try to start a small business, I approach Opencart and its modules from a different angle to Developers or Web Designers as cost is unfortunately a big part of starting a business.

I have spent about £100 on one module alone as I needed what it offered and I believe the cost of the app is fair to what is gained, but I have other little additions I need and find it sad that some small modification are being sold commercially than given as a contribution to the community that use Opencart.

I have no problems paying for modules that are well built and well supported by its creator as things to tend to go wrong when modules are installed by people who are not very clued up on the ins and outs of php etc.

I know that once my website is up and running I will be making a financial contribution to help fund future updates to Opencart to ensure it will continue to be developed, if more people released free or cheaper modules more people would pick Opencart and then they too would give money to development...

As a business owner running an online business, and former computer tech, I too look at OpenCart a little different. While I can program and modify my web site, I prefer to spend my time running my business instead of spending time on the computer making web modifications.

The reason I selected OpenCart was because it has a majority of the features I needed for my web site - not because it was free. I have no problem paying for a product, yet at the same time, I am a small business that does not have the resources to pay for some of the more elaborate shopping carts that can handle my business needs.

Because of my tech background, and my strong customer service skills & ethics, I have heavily researched the forums and extensions and viewed the comments fields of all the extensions I am interested in. Once again, I have no problem paying for an extension I need, but if the comments fields show the developer does not respond in a timely manner, or DELETES comments, or does not update their extensions, that raises a red flag for me. Developers who only updaate their high cost extensions and leave the "cheap" or "free" extensions out-dated also raise a red flag for me. From what I have seen, typically those developers are also the ones who only post in the forums to advertise. Sure they might have developed an extension that will be perfect for my store, but that developer lost a sale - and probably several other purchases from me.

When OpenCart finally releases the Order Edit version, I will be doing a major revamp and intend to make many purchases on extensions, new theme, etc. and hire someone to do the bulk of the work for me. I will also be donating $$ to OpenCart as part of my gratitude.

Webvet, I say publish it. If I like what I see in your mod and need it, I may use it ... or I may choose to purchase it from the other person if I like theirs better.

Unfortunately, the developers who are not offering anything for free; do not respond to and/or delete their extension comments; or do not help others in this forum are not going to see this thread. They are only on the forum long enough to post another advertisement.

For those of you developers who have posted in this thread and help others, let me express my grattitude to you for doing what you do. I do recognize your names as the "good ones" and I have some of your freebie & paid mods bookmarked as ones I plan to use in my revamp. You will see purchases and praise from me when the new Order Edit is finally released!