dashCommerce

So maybe someone can answer this?  Is dashCommerce open source or not?  The reason I ask if I've made several attempts to email the people in charge only to be ignored.

 I've been looking for a decent commerce package to offer our customers at no charge and this seems to be a good fit except for some missing parts that I was willing to add and give away for free.

1. Authorize.NET Payment Module
2. SkipJack Payment Module
3. USPS Real Time Shipping Module
4. UPS Real Time Shipping Module
5. FEDEX Real Time Shipping Module
6. DHL Real Time Shipping Module

 It appears to me Mettle Systems is only interested in modules being created if they actually make a profit on them otherwise you get ignored.

 I hope that I'm wrong but maybe someone can answer what the deal is here?

 I've had some of the same concerns. I've also noticed quite a few others that share the same concerns on codeplex. Trying to get a response on the forums seems to be a little tough. I'm shying away from dashcommerce for now just to see what happens in the future. I've seen so many times people turn an open source project into a product that either limit functionality or provide a product that doesn't work without some type of paid support subscription or cost involved. This say's a lot about a companies business ethics IMHO and I hate to say it but it looks as if this is where dashcommerce is heading. I hope i'm wrong. 

It seems that chris is milking this for all its worth.

email me at theonlylawislove@gmail.com if you want a FREE AUTHORIZE.NET PAYMENT PROVIDER!

I have tested it and it works.

I mentioned here that I was not going to be around much for a few weeks. In addition to my wife and I having our third child (yeah!), I've been dealing with some family illnesses which has extended my absence. I'm popping up just long enough to address what I view as some unfair accusations.

Before 3.0 came out the community agreed that this model was a good approach. Also, to be clear - anyone can become a vendor and sell their code at dashCommerce.com. If you chose not to sell it, that's fine too. But, as I mentioned, the community agreed that this was a good approach in an effort to support the product over the long term. What I don't have to support is someone trying to use this site to advertise their service(s) - that's just piggy-backing on the success of this project to further their own commercial operation.

If you don't like the way the project is run (that's fine, it may not be for everyone), then you are welcome to go elsewhere.

Hi,

I looked in my inbox to find your PM - it was dated August 25, 2008, well after my blog post about being absent.

dashCommerce.com is completely open to anyone who wants to sell their stuff. There is one vendor up there with the UPS Shipping provider. There are plenty  of posts here about that. There are 10 vendors registered - some may be working on stuff, some may not.

Also, regarding piggy-backing. I've been here for over 3 years and running the project for the last 1.75. I've answered a ton of forum questions, written 95% of the code you download, fixed bugs, yada yada yada - you get the picture.

I'll put up a page when I get back (still have plenty of things to deal with) detailing some of this out and the project philosophy in general. 

Best of luck to you.

 It seeme to me that shipping, payment and tax providers are such a indispensible feature of an ecommerce package that they should be included as free and open source. No one can set up a truly complete ecommerce site without them. Therefore, making them 3rd party addons that must be paid for is tatamount to extortion - we cannot run a site without them, and you force us to buy them. Saying that anyone can create their own and give it away for free is intellectually dishonest. We are in the business of either 1)providing a complete solution to our clients, or 2) we are shop owners who really don't care to code or don't have the time to code (it takes a lot of time to set up a shop online) and we cannot afford to buy our ecommerce package or its 100 dollar addons. Heck, for that price (100 * 3 (Tax, Payment, Shipping packages) = 300), I might as well buy one of the cheaper commercial softwares.

 Obviously, when "the community" decided to go with this model, they were not presented with well thought out alternative arguments.

There are free implementations for every provider.

It just cost money for the more specific ones.

Download the source, you'll see some default providers in there for shipping/payment/tax.

 Of course its a Open Source....u can Download from Community tab with registration.