OpenCart Review?

I hope not to offend any of the OC development/support staff but am seeking some candid answers to some important questions.

I've installed the software and a template, added some products and having been traversing the admin pages. Before committing 100% to hours of product loading, configuration, etc. I'd like to know the following:

1. How big is the support staff, how responsive? Is there a company behind OC or a small staff of programmers without a legal identity?
2. Is there a roadmap for this product? Is there a release schedule?
3. Google checkout is a primary merchant solution and yet I found only a free addon and it appears to be periodically supported and buggy.
4. What is the long term commitment? If I spend 1000 hours building and implementing a store in the next 18 months--can I be assured this company/project will be around in say 2 years, 5 years, etc.

Thank you to all who respond. J

1) Support Staff is mostly community based, and getting larger every week. Typically you have an answer within an 20 minutes, or a few hours for more complex problems.
2) No, No.
3) It's open source, you get what you get. If your unhappy with existing solutions code something better.
4) There is no guarantee but the OC has been around a long time and author(s) make a good deal of money from extension commissions so I really doubt they would have any reason to stop.

If your looking for a solution with rock solid 'official support' buy into Magento Enterprise, I think it's around $20,000 per year these days.

Your response is a clear indication of what I expected. Looks like OC is not the solution for me.

j8h9 wrote:Your response is a clear indication of what I expected. Looks like OC is not the solution for me.

If that's the case then the only open source project you should look at is magento, and you need to purchase the corporate support. Other than that don't bother, because none of the others will give you guaranteed support, and certainly not for free.