I'm not new to software at all but just testing the waters with web-based eCommerce. For our first FLOSS eCommerce package I installed osCommerce. It seemed a bit "rigid" so I started looking at community contributions (modules). After a while it was apparent that most mods for osC are old, unmaintained, and there's no telling if any given mod will work with the current version of the core.
So here I packed my bags and came here - and many of the mods and themes here haven't been updated in a year or more either. eek
Why can't we get a list of mods and templates that are compliant with the current core release v1.3.8? How can we tell without looking at each individual mod whether they will work with 1.3.8 even though they were written over 1.3.7 or maybe 1.3.0? Why doesn't anyone (with any of these FLOSS packages) think to add to the mod index pages a column for "confirmed for v1.3.8"?
I understand that there is always going to be a lag from one point release to another. But I tend to look at the attrition rate of modules as a measure of how stable the software is. Do we really want to get involved with software where we load neat modules now and they can't work with the next release a year later?
Here is some info to support what I'm talking about. The Other Modules list of add-ons has 143 items as of today. Of those, only 60 of those were updated this year. 60 add-ons claim v1.3.8 as the ZC version. (The '60' number is pure coincidence since these aren't all the same as those updated this year, but of course the numbers should be close.) 51 add-ons claim v1.3.7 support.
That means there are 51 add-ons in this group, about 1/3 that may or may not work with the current release, and considering this release has been available all year, chances are slim that these modules will get pulled forward. The remaining 42 (again just a sample group) represent about another 1/3 which seem to have been completely forsaken.
So from this very unscientific experiment one might conclude that each 8 months or so we flush about 1/3 of the modules that we've added to a ZC installation. Some of these will probably get rolled into the core, but it still means there is almost a complete turnover of modules every 2-3 years. How stable is that? During this period every site owner will go through the same soul searching: "will my module work with this release?" "what can I get to replace it?" "can someone help to update add-on?"
I guess you guys are pretty happy with ZC, but I think an attrition rate of 1/3 of the software every 8 months or so is a bit brutal.
Ahem - so whaddya think? Thanks for your time.
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