Extension Store Update IMPORTANT!!

I think the only issue I have with a developer offering say a 2 year license at a higher rate is that there is no guarantee that module will get additional features in that timeframe and you may be paying extra for nothing.

Look I do fully understand the developers position. I can see some modules involve a lot of heavy coding to achieve their result and when the core gets updated there is more work.

However in the latter case that is the developers choice to keep up the demand for users of the newest version that should not be at the customers cost (unless they require the newest version).

There are some modules here that are very simple and some that have very little pre-sale demos.

So I think if this licensing system is going to be fair all round then surely it should be up to the individual developer to decide? And if there is to be a license system, then part of that should mandate consistent supply of demos.

ukdesigner wrote:I think the only issue I have with a developer offering say a 2 year license at a higher rate is that there is no guarantee that module will get additional features in that timeframe and you may be paying extra for nothing.

Look I do fully understand the developers position. I can see some modules involve a lot of heavy coding to achieve their result and when the core gets updated there is more work.

However in the latter case that is the developers choice to keep up the demand for users of the newest version that should not be at the customers cost (unless they require the newest version).

There are some modules here that are very simple and some that have very little pre-sale demos.

So I think if this licensing system is going to be fair all round then surely it should be up to the individual developer to decide? And if there is to be a license system, then part of that should mandate consistent supply of demos.

The license fee is not only for features upgrade, support is also part of it. For instance, consider the following:-
1. Conflict with new opencart version
2. Conflict with other extension
3. Not working with new hosting environment
4. Suddenly not working for any reason
You will need to ask for support, right ? So it is not fair for developer to offer lifetime support for one-time fee. If the buyers think they do no need this, they can purchase for 1 year license. Fair enough I think.

The more OC move on the more its getting closed source. Ok. I agree with developers enriching, that's the bottom line of Daniel's idea, at all.
What about set an minimum time to seller attend customer's support ticket?
I'm tired of getting 5~7 days to be answered not necessary bug/problem solved.

Capitalism is good when its make everything move on. Not only sellers side. Once they have more money they need to improve their abilities to attend customers and fasten solving problem time.

I have to say, I don't think any buyers should expect additional features as part of their purchase. When they buy the extension, they are buying the functionality at that time for the extension. I don't buy any software expecting feature upgrades. I do however expect a limited amount of support and bug fixes should there be an issue

As far as I'm concerned, an extension should say what it does and provide that feature flawlessly to the customer. If there are issues, they should be addressed accordingly. Likewise with the comments above, support SHOULD be provided to customers in a reasonable time scale. I'd say 5 days is more than ample for support requests - however sometimes developers will do things like go on holiday for a week/two weeks where they may not be able to provide support during this time so it would be useful to at least have some kind of system to let buyers know they are on a break until a certain date.

I do agree that a developer should be able to choose the licensing system however, since as you say some are very simple and they're not going to require much in the way of maintenance

This will not affect free extensions in any way I take it?

My mods are all simple lil things (even if some took ages for this newbie to work out!) so I always intend to give them away free, with whatever support I can provide to the end-users. I know most "freebies" have little or no support but if I can help I will.

I came to OC from Zencart while still setting up my first store as it seemed (note that word!) easier to use and configure, and there was the promise of lots of open source mods and fixes to enhance it - it would be a shame for users like me (rather than web designers working for clients) if it moved too far in the commercial direction.

I would like to see every commercial extension offer an affordable "single use" license for end-users who are setting up their site themselves, as well as a "developer" license at a higher cost for those wanting to use the extension multiple times - I have seen a couple like this already in the directory.

Just my thoughts...

With regards to one year of support, our opinion is it should be no longer than 90 days and one license per domain with the ability to purchase additional licenses for additional subdomains at a discount at the time of purchase. These settings should be determined by the developer. If the developer wants to offer a longer period, then so be it. In the software and tech world 1 year is like a decade and that's way too long.

ocx wrote:With regards to one year of support, our opinion is it should be no longer than 90 days and one license per domain with the ability to purchase additional licenses for additional subdomains at a discount at the time of purchase. These settings should be determined by the developer. If the developer wants to offer a longer period, then so be it. In the software and tech world 1 year is like a decade and that's way too long.

you can't go by per domains or per sub domains. It's going to be very confusing for someone running OpenCart multi store functionality. Go by per OpenCart installation.

And I would agree that we will need a 'on holiday' button for us to switch that on if we are unavailable for a certain period.

MarketInSG wrote:you can't go by per domains or per sub domains. It's going to be very confusing for someone running OpenCart multi store functionality. Go by per OpenCart installation.

These settings need to be left up to the developer. Not everyone will think that it's confusing. With your method a user that has 10 multi stores with 10 different domains will get 10 extensions for the price of one. Not cool with us.

ocx wrote:These settings need to be left up to the developer. Not everyone will think that it's confusing. With your method a user that has 10 multi stores with 10 different domains will get 10 extensions for the price of one. Not cool with us.

Right, but the user will be using the same SINGLE piece of code with the sites running off the same SINGLE database. I don't really understand why people are even discussing this to be honest - It's next to impossible to police the licensing in the first place

Where "1 year is like a decade and that's way too long," how many OC .x releases has that typically spanned? People who obtain free or commercial extensions frequently find that whatever worked just fine suddenly stopped working, for whatever reasons they and developers may (or may not) care to resolve, among .x releases and various server environments that came to light. A "mere" upgrade in server php.exe can cause problems to appear, as happened recently to several people on 5.4.x on bluehost.

butte wrote: A "mere" upgrade in server php.exe can cause problems to appear, as happened recently to several people on 5.4.x on bluehost.

Could you PM me or should I start a new thread since I am looking for info on what you speak with the comment about bluehost and 5.4.x and what issues?

I agree, the license should be per OpenCart installation. Also, given the developer the ability to select the license period would be very helpful.

For example, I have several smaller modifications which I charge a minimal price. These mods may require an update to make them work with the latest version, but for the most part they are adaptable and won't require a significant upgrade. I don't feel charging a customer full price to update to the latest version a year down the road is fair in this circumstance.

As others have said, the ability to offer a lower price for a license renewal would ensure that developers like myself who offer significant upgrades to their currently at no additional cost, could recoup some of the development costs required to make these changes that benefit both new customers, but also customers from 2+ yrs ago who paid only a small fraction of the current extension price.



Regards,
Joel.

When I purchased the extensions, our contract was clearly stated with access to future releases of downloads.

You cannot change the terms & conditions of our existing contracts.

sml wrote:When I purchased the extensions, our contract was clearly stated with access to future releases of downloads

Show me where this was the case as I've never once seen this anywhere. It may be implied by some authors - or assumed by purchasers, but it's not in the terms and conditions agreed to at checkout. You really think a $20 purchase will give you infinite updates? I hate to be the barer of bad news but that's HIGHLY unlikely

to be honest, we need to do something about those users that comes back after 1 year that say their extension is not working when they upgraded their store...

JAY6390 wrote:It may be implied by some authors - or assumed by purchasers,

i dont have time to read the details of every extension that i have purchased, nor the standard terms, however regardless of the outcome of those terms ... as you stated, it is an implied term.

here is a link for some basic contract law ... just scroll down to 'implied terms' section ...
http://www.australiancontractlaw.com/la ... terms.html

for everyone buying extensions, it has always been super clear that purchasers have access to download future updates. that is how the system works and it is clearly an implied term of our contract.

support would be a grey area and i think it would be reasonable to stop providing support after a month or so.

sml wrote:as you stated, it is an implied term

I actually stated that it may be implied by some authors - not all of them. Also, the extension store itself in no way implies it either. I'm also familiar with basic contract law, and the term "implied" and the reason I used it, but just because you assume something doesn't make it correct. As for

sml wrote:i dont have time to read the details of every extension that i have purchased, nor the standard terms

yet previously said

sml wrote:our contract was clearly stated with access to future releases of downloads

- Which is it? Did you have a clear contract that you read or do you not have time to read them? You can't do both. The standard terms are at best a minutes reading and if you don't have time to read those, I'm amazed you have the time to read what an extension does before purchasing which begs the question how exactly do you choose an extension to purchase? You also state that it is "Super clear that purchasers have access to download future updates". Oh really? I'd like to see where you got this information since you don't have time to read the terms and conditions, or extension descriptions yet you seem to have time to know enough that you supposedly should receive all of these benefits?

Bottom line - you assume you have rights for all extensions without any of those rights being told to you. Since you're talking contracts, you would need a contract to state that you actually receive these rights - not just take it upon yourself that you're entitled to everything

I think it fare, aslong the extension`s being updated.

Is the extension store broken ?

I'm pretty frustrated. I bought $175 worth of extensions yesterday and I can't download anything even though the transactions went through my Paypal account and I got all of the email sending me to the downloads section of the account.

Its been almost 12 hours and I have not heard anything from support. Will someone in the community be so kind as to explain to me what is going on?

Any help is appreciated. I want to give OpenCart the benefit of the doubt, even through it makes me worried when eCommerce software breaks when you are paying to download the eCommerce software

Thanks in Advance,

peter

Hi Peter

Did you go to the extension page when you were logged in and try and download using the links on the page there? They should be working

Jay