{"id":1185,"date":"2015-03-31T20:28:39","date_gmt":"2015-03-31T09:28:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/howden.net.au\/thowden\/?p=1185"},"modified":"2015-03-31T20:28:39","modified_gmt":"2015-03-31T09:28:39","slug":"oscommerce-3-the-un-roadmap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/howden.net.au\/thowden\/2015\/03\/oscommerce-3-the-un-roadmap\/","title":{"rendered":"osCommerce 3  the Un &#8211; roadmap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hmm,\u00a0 what you will not find here is a roadmap.<\/p>\n<p>To paraphrase a StarTrek statement &#8220;She&#8217;s dead Jim!&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Well, probably not dead to the handful of folks that are intimately engaged with it,<a href=\"http:\/\/howden.net.au\/test2\/files\/2015\/03\/2015-03-31-20_08_36-Pulse-\u00b7-osCommerce_oscommerce-\u00b7-GitHub.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" size-medium wp-image-1186 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/howden.net.au\/test2\/files\/2015\/03\/2015-03-31-20_08_36-Pulse-\u00b7-osCommerce_oscommerce-\u00b7-GitHub-300x77.png\" alt=\"2015-03-31 20_08_36-Pulse \u00b7 osCommerce_oscommerce \u00b7 GitHub\" width=\"300\" height=\"77\" srcset=\"https:\/\/howden.net.au\/thowden\/files\/2015\/03\/2015-03-31-20_08_36-Pulse-\u00b7-osCommerce_oscommerce-\u00b7-GitHub-300x77.png 300w, https:\/\/howden.net.au\/thowden\/files\/2015\/03\/2015-03-31-20_08_36-Pulse-\u00b7-osCommerce_oscommerce-\u00b7-GitHub.png 934w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a> but to the outsiders like myself, a long-term, like I have been a since-it-started user, I only need to look at the GitHub repository and note that it does not have a pulse.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Reviewing the commits shows that even Harald <a href=\"http:\/\/howden.net.au\/test2\/files\/2015\/03\/2015-03-31-20_08_19-osCommerce_oscommerce-\u00b7-GitHub.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" size-medium wp-image-1188 alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/howden.net.au\/test2\/files\/2015\/03\/2015-03-31-20_08_19-osCommerce_oscommerce-\u00b7-GitHub-300x116.png\" alt=\"2015-03-31 20_08_19-osCommerce_oscommerce \u00b7 GitHub\" width=\"300\" height=\"116\" srcset=\"https:\/\/howden.net.au\/thowden\/files\/2015\/03\/2015-03-31-20_08_19-osCommerce_oscommerce-\u00b7-GitHub-300x116.png 300w, https:\/\/howden.net.au\/thowden\/files\/2015\/03\/2015-03-31-20_08_19-osCommerce_oscommerce-\u00b7-GitHub.png 802w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>has been silent on the V3.0.x version with nothing for over 3 years, and even then the &#8216;latest&#8217; stuff includes items from 4 years ago, and a solitary update to a &#8216;ReadMe&#8217; file 2 years ago.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/howden.net.au\/test2\/files\/2015\/03\/2015-03-31-20_09_09-Contributors-to-osCommerce_oscommerce-\u00b7-GitHub.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" size-medium wp-image-1187 alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/howden.net.au\/test2\/files\/2015\/03\/2015-03-31-20_09_09-Contributors-to-osCommerce_oscommerce-\u00b7-GitHub-300x169.png\" alt=\"2015-03-31 20_09_09-Contributors to osCommerce_oscommerce \u00b7 GitHub\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/howden.net.au\/thowden\/files\/2015\/03\/2015-03-31-20_09_09-Contributors-to-osCommerce_oscommerce-\u00b7-GitHub-300x169.png 300w, https:\/\/howden.net.au\/thowden\/files\/2015\/03\/2015-03-31-20_09_09-Contributors-to-osCommerce_oscommerce-\u00b7-GitHub.png 934w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a> This GitHub activity graph highlights the few peaks and mostly troughs of in-activity and only two players involved.<\/p>\n<p>This was all a snap-shot from GitHub at 31\/3\/2015. It might have changed since and you can check the latest at <a title=\"osCommerce 3.0 Prgress at GitHub\" href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/osCommerce\/oscommerce\/graphs\/contributors\">https:\/\/github.com\/osCommerce\/oscommerce\/graphs\/contributors<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Why am I publishing this?\u00a0 I need to be sure that the platform I am using and recommending to clients is contemporary and of value. I have long campaigned as a pro open-source user and developer (albeit part-time as most OS people are). Seriously, version 2 of osC and all the forks, including osCmax, which has been a favourite for a number of years, have all fallen behind in terms of ability to deliver. The causes include developer needs being satisfied, end-users engaging with developers and then not wanting to invest any more time or cash, GFC&#8217;s or similar global phenomena, general apathy, and the fact that for an OS developer, you invest a stack of time for the joy of making it work, and that rush stops working.<\/p>\n<p>Responsive templates, Google Mobile testing, image management, are all critical these days, and a platform that is struggling to remain relevant is not a path I think we should persist with.<\/p>\n<p>Granted, version 2 of osCommerce has been kind of active and still has a strong community, but is it relevant, even if the plan is to, perhaps one day, reach an automated migration from 2.x to 3.x, if v3.x is already 9 years out-of-date. (osC 3 was first actively promoted in <a title=\"osCommerce 3.0 Alpha announced\" href=\"http:\/\/www.oscommerce.com\/Us&amp;News=125\">September 2006<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>Technology moves too damn fast, time to move on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hmm,\u00a0 what you will not find here is a roadmap. To paraphrase a StarTrek statement &#8220;She&#8217;s dead Jim!&#8221;. Well, probably not dead to the handful of folks that are intimately engaged with it, but to the outsiders like myself, a long-term, like I have been a since-it-started user, I only need to look at the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oscommerce-oscmax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/howden.net.au\/thowden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/howden.net.au\/thowden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/howden.net.au\/thowden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/howden.net.au\/thowden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/howden.net.au\/thowden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/howden.net.au\/thowden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1185\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/howden.net.au\/thowden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/howden.net.au\/thowden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/howden.net.au\/thowden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}