OpenMage Future

[ADDISON74]

With the new recent changes OpenMage starts to become an independent solution, which can no longer be called a temporary solution, an LTS. The only aspect it still has in common with Magento 1 is only an important piece of code, otherwise the changes produced at least lately are visible.

My opinion that OpenMage is starting to become a real alternative to other popular free shopping carts such as Shopware, Prestashop, OpenCart, WooCommerce, Magento 2 and that needs intense promotion. In order to be successful, it is necessary for the administrators of this project to get in touch with the extension/module providers for Magento 1 and convince them to continue the support for OpenMage. When the interest in OpenMage increases, we will definitely have more contributors on GitHub.

[fballiano]

I really like what we've done lately, I'd hope for a v21.1.0 to have a rwd2 theme (a better name would be needed anyway...) to remove some of the ancient javascripts (prototype is impossible to remove but at least scriptaculous) and use a more modern CSS stack (flexbox/grid instead of floats) and make it a bit more modern (rwd is anyway a really good starter theme!).

[empiricompany]

@Danieleeffe1 - Are you working on a public branch on GitHub? I would like to contribute

[Danieleeffe1]

here you can see an application

[pauldpauld]

That is just beautiful. Well done!

[Danieleeffe1]

@empiricompany i would like to share and make my work better, but i have never worked in github and i have no idea how to do or organize the work.

I admit without hiding that my work needs to be cleaned up and fixed (which I try to do in my spare time).

Probably those who were to approach my work would find a lot of confusion.

[ADDISON74]

@Danieleeffe1 - I recommend you watching a few videos on YouTube about GitHub and basic features about Git. You start creating a repository (private or public) then upload your files there.

[m-overlund]

i do agree.
OpenMage is going places, at the moment 👌

However, in order to be succesful and gain traction, wide support from ESPs, PSPs, Tracking extension providers, Personalisation etc., is essential.

[Jattura]

First of all, I'm just a very regular user, I don't know any coding knowledge. But if base on user like as my student level, I still use 1.9.4.x rather than 20.0.x beause it is really lack extensions and difficult to find the solving the problem knowleadge. Most M1 solving solution is need to search on stackoverflow or some forums.

Yesterday I went to builtwith to see how many users use openmage. Of course, I don't know what version they are using. But I imagine most sites like mine are still using version 1.9.4. Because it's rare to find old M1 extensions on the web these days. It seems to me that your Great team can place your website using a previously open free extension and let users download. For example I had contacted AOE Scheulder asking if they could use PHP8 for their application, I was lucky they replied that I could support php8.1 because I think they had stopped replying to anyone because of the old M1 version.

In the end, I hope your openmage can become the main e-commerce solution in the world. And thanks to your team for still continuing to provide users with patches. I believe the M1 version will make a comeback to win the M2 in the future.

[ADDISON74]

I can say that OpenMage continues Magento 1 and is more than that. Unfortunately, the attitude of those who abandoned the platform so easily starting with 2020 and who put all their hopes in Magento 2 is incomprehensible. More than 40% of developers have removed extensions, modules, custom code, support from sale. It is their decision, but in the rush for more money they may have lost customers. Not all those I have talked with over time chose to go with Magento 2 (which is more expensive to manage), but decided to use other solutions. If there were more of us here things would be different, an entire loyal community was lost. Out of the box, OpenMage can be a solid solution for anyone who wants an online store. A person with average programming knowledge can manage it by himself.

[fballiano]

the hard truth is that Magento (the company) destroyed Magento (the software, community and ecosystem) with Magento 2, we were the de facto standard in the ecommerce platform, the most used, supported, stable, feature rich. nowadays magento is only one-of-the others.

but hey, they did a lot of money in the meanwhile so... I guess they're happy? idk

[Jattura]

Great to hear replies from fballiano and ADDISON74. I agree with both of your points. If Openmage wants to increase the global market share of eCommerce solutions, I recommend that your team consider our low-level users. If the platform is easy to maintain and use, there is no need to enter commands for complex processes such as M2. I think many people will choose Openmage over M2 or later M3.... Maybe one day, Adobe will buy back your Openmage. If yes, that would be very interesting.

[empiricompany]

I am grateful to share my personal opinion. Let it be clear that I do not intend to raise any controversy, but rather provide constructive criticism.

I think OpenMage is currently the best open-source eCommerce solution on the market. Personally, I am able to overcome any challenges presented by clients thanks to the flexibility of customization that OpenMage offers. I have some Magento 2 instances (where the client insisted on the update), and the maintenance and development costs have at least tripled, along with the difficulties of implementing new features and specific customizations in the code.

The main problems of OpenMage as a project and as a product, in my opinion, are:

• It is not recognized by third-party developers and agencies, so there is a lack of official support for payment systems like Klarna and integrations with platforms like Facebook and Google, etc. Personally, I haven't had any issues in facing these challenges because unofficial solutions exist, but having ready-to-use extensions officially supported by these actors should be the norm.
• The previous point, in my opinion, is due to mismanagement of our image and public relations. We have an outdated and unattractive website, where extension developers are listed as partners but don't actually support us. I am aware that managing all this requires resources, but a clear and distinctive image (for example, the official colors of the logo are not yet clear to me) would greatly help in attracting other users. We need to completely abandon the old Magento orange and refer to OpenMage on the internet instead of Magento 1. Also The backend theme, which I have never liked, and for which I opened a discussion here: A brand new admin theme for OpenMage #3458. It definitely needs to be revised because it personally feels like a downgrade to me and my clients, and it appears messy and unidentifiable. It can definitely be done better with a few adjustments.
• One problem at the community level is the lack of a clear directive that drives the project's vision. Additionally, we also have a limited number of active developers. Don't get me wrong, I love the freedom we have to propose and do things, but in the end, someone has to make decisions and everyone needs to share the same vision. In fact, we have both more conservative and more revolutionary individuals. Personally, I believe that the platform should evolve with new features, even if it means sacrificing some minor compatibility issues. Otherwise, it will remain what it was originally intended to be, an LTS with a short lifespan.

Our platform is on par with other solutions in terms of functionality. OpenMage has been upgraded to run on a modern stack, making it more efficient and lightweight than ever before.
We should consider creating a clear roadmap of future developments and priorities where voting is open to non-developers as well (with a different weight).

Below are some priority points that come to my mind quickly for me:

• advanced product grid with preview image. Here I started a first draft but there have been few feedbacks Adds configurable columns to product grid #3451
• a officially supported Google reCAPTCHA solution
  This is my fork compatible with OpenMage, but it requires additional modifications to some templates that could be avoided if it were in the core. https://github.com/empiricompany/reCaptcha
• Lack of a modern frontend. One could develop and maintain an easy and modern frontend stack in parallel to attract new theme developers. I am thinking of a mobile-first theme with a modern SaaS build and starting to replace Prototype with VanillaJS or (AlpineJS?) in less critical parts, while keeping it in the more complex areas, like in the checkout, for now.
• Improve the search, Magento 1's Achilles' heel since forever
• 2factor authentication for backend

It is true, and I am aware that there are ready-made solutions for these problems. But for how long will they still be supported? Often, we developers create forks ourselves to make them compatible with the latest versions. Wouldn't it be better if they were officially supported and integrated into the core?

That being said, you will ask me, "Everything sounds great, but how do we do it?" And here we go back to the initial discussion that we need to organize ourselves better and be much more involved and numerous in the project :) and it's not an easy task..

[ADDISON74]

OpenMage needs changes over time

• Complete removal of all old JS libraries, the most important Prototype
• ZF1-Future with Laminas
• keeping up with new PHP versions
• security issues
• Varnish
• basic features

It would be ideal for Magento 1 extension developers to make them available to the community to be maintained. Some of them have already done it on GitHub and I appreciate this help.

I am in the process of moving my stores to servers based on Debian 12, which comes with PHP 8.2, and I will get LTS support until 2028. You can count on my presence here. We have a handful of people left, but those who want to try OpenMage will not regret it, even those who were stonewalled in Magento 1.

I like Magento 2, I still run it from time to time, it has a solid community, but I seem to like more the simplicity of OpenMage, which can be a solution for small, medium and even large stores.

[Tomasz-Silpion]

I am in the midst of continuous development for three major platforms based on OpenMage, and I plan to support you folks in the coming years as well with my own ecommerce company. Once, one of my M2 partners mentioned that Magento 1's singleton architecture is outdated. However, isn't this also the case with WordPress? OpenMage provides an excellent solution without a high steep learning curve, and I anticipate its renaissance.

In the meantime, I would like to add an improved layered navigation feature to the wishlist. I've been using ManaDev solutions for years, but sadly, they closed their company just yesterday: https://www.manadev.com/blog/we-are-closing/

[pauldpauld]

Personally, I would like to see the "Many SKU one Inventory" being available, I currently have to use a configurable product and hack the html to hide the "option". :-(

[osmianski]

Hey folks!

Manadev developer here.

First of all, I'm glad to see that OpenMage is live and kicking! I wish you all the best with that. Back in the days, I really loved Magento 1.x.

I have no problem open-sourcing our Magento 1 extensions. In fact, I just did: https://github.com/osmianski/manadev-magento.

In development, we used a CLI tool to symlink the extension sources into a Magento project. I open-sourced it as well: https://github.com/osmianski/m-sync. I also added the binary to the manadev-magento repository.

Unfortunately, there is no internal documentation on either of these repos. I believe you are smart and will figure it out.

However, here is how everything worked. The project had the .team-config file, modules to be symlinked into the project, e.g.:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<config>
    <m-sync>
        <!-- SEO Layered Navigation Plus -->

        <include dir="manadev/magento-extensions/extensions/Mana/Admin"/>
        <include dir="manadev/magento-extensions/extensions/Mana/Ajax"/>
        <include dir="manadev/magento-extensions/extensions/Mana/Core"/>
        <include dir="manadev/magento-extensions/extensions/Mana/Db"/>
        <include dir="manadev/magento-extensions/extensions/Mana/Filters"/>
        <include dir="manadev/magento-extensions/extensions/Mana/Seo"/>
        <include dir="manadev/magento-extensions/extensions/ManaPro/FilterAdmin"/>
        <include dir="manadev/magento-extensions/extensions/ManaPro/FilterAjax"/>
        <include dir="manadev/magento-extensions/extensions/ManaPro/FilterCheckboxes"/>
        <include dir="manadev/magento-extensions/extensions/ManaPro/FilterColors"/>
        <include dir="manadev/magento-extensions/extensions/ManaPro/FilterDropdown"/>
        <include dir="manadev/magento-extensions/extensions/ManaPro/FilterPositioning"/>
        <include dir="manadev/magento-extensions/extensions/ManaPro/FilterRadios"/>
        <include dir="manadev/magento-extensions/extensions/ManaPro/FilterSeoLinks"/>
        <include dir="manadev/magento-extensions/extensions/ManaPro/FilterShowMore"/>
        <include dir="manadev/magento-extensions/extensions/ManaPro/FilterSlider"/>
        <include dir="manadev/magento-extensions/extensions/ManaPro/FilterSuperSlider"/>
        <include dir="manadev/magento-extensions/extensions/ManaPro/FilterTree"/>
        <include dir="manadev/magento-extensions/extensions/ManaPro/FilterAdvanced"/>
        <include dir="manadev/magento-extensions/extensions/ManaPro/FilterExpandAdvanced"/>
        <include dir="manadev/magento-extensions/extensions/ManaPro/FilterExpandCollapse"/>
        <include dir="manadev/magento-extensions/extensions/ManaPro/FilterClear"/>
        <include dir="manadev/magento-extensions/extensions/ManaPro/FilterGroup"/>
        <include dir="manadev/magento-extensions/extensions/ManaPro/FilterHelp"/>

        <!-- Other extensions -->
    </m-sync>
</config>

To create symlinks, run m-sync project. It reads the extension.xml file in every listed directory, and creates listed symlinks.

Today, I'd do it differently, but it is how it is.

Feel free to tinker with the sources however you like, just don't forget to mention me in your project.

Good luck!

[fballiano]

Hi Vlad! As I was writing you (I think it was you) on Facebook it's sorry to see ManaDev go but opensourcing the modules is an extremely huge gift to all our community, I hope we'll be able to put at least some of it to good use for everybody. Thank you so much!

[ADDISON74]

@osmianski - In the last two years I contacted many extension developers for Magento 1 whom I asked not to abandon them and if they do, to make them public. It's a shame to waste such of dedicated work, in addition, it can remain a reference if OpenMage continues on its journey. You are the first to make such a gift. Thank you.

[ADDISON74]

@fballiano - Maybe we should list such developers on the OpenMage page (GitHub) and thank them for their contribution. Thus we encourage others to do the same. We can create an introductory paragraph in which we ask those who read it not to throw away years of work and satisfaction.

[tmotyl]

My 2c.
Openmage needs an a formal entity and a little governence.

This way it would be possible to collect money and have some official way of communication with merchants and tech partners.

The easiest way to do so is to get under umbrella of existing association/foundation.

[fballiano]

totally agree, I was about to propose something similar a few months ago, it would make a big difference.

[samex]

Hello everyone,

I've been following this discussion about developing a new RWD2 theme for OpenMage with great interest. The initiative to modernize the frontend is exciting and, I believe, essential for the future of OpenMage.

However, I noticed that detailed plans or a task list for this project haven't been clearly outlined yet. Can anyone provide insights into:

1. Current Progress: Where does the project currently stand? Are there any preliminary designs, prototypes, or codebases already in development?

2. Task Breakdown: Is there a breakdown of tasks or features that the new theme aims to implement? This could include UI/UX improvements, performance optimizations, or specific technical updates.

3. Contribution Guidelines: How can members of the community get involved? Are there specific areas where help is needed, such as design, coding, testing, or documentation?

4. Timeline and Milestones: Has a timeline or set of milestones been established for the theme's development?

5. Coordination and Communication: What are the preferred channels for coordinating on this project? How will updates and decisions be communicated to ensure everyone is aligned?

I am eager to contribute to this endeavor and believe that a clear understanding of these aspects will enable more effective collaboration.

Looking forward to your responses and the exciting journey ahead in enhancing OpenMage!

[Flyingmana]

Thank you for the Interest.

Contribution Guidelines

Most of us started to get involved with areas, they are relevant for themself or their work.
Help is needed basically everywhere, we recently tried to fet an overview here: #2908

Timeline and Milestones

As all of the people working on a new Theme do this on a voluntary base, we are not able to provide a timeline, and we are not far enough in, to have milestones set.

Task Breakdown

One could say the Goal is feature parity with the current frontend. but I think we dont have a written List yet. I think mostly, because different people have different goals and approaches, which makes setting boundaries from maintainer side complicated, as its also not clear who has actuall, the time to follow up with their plan.

Coordination and Communication

Coordination for this topic happened in big parts in our Discord, its also the best place to get a fast and informal feedback loop. (Its also for me the easiest place to get asked for something)
For the alignment, the highest instance is our RFCs https://github.com/OpenMage/rfcs
But most is happening here in the Discussions section.
That said, for the frontend theme part there is no clear alignment yet for the reason, that we can not estimate yet which Plan is actually expected to be able reaching a finished state. And till then the only alignment is, that we only merge what is not breaking existing functionality.

All that said, Iam not necessarily up2date on this topic, which is why I did skip the Current Progress part.

One place I found where was done something with more activity is in this discussion here:
#3584

But I remember there were also one or two others, which already had some proof of concept state reached. maybe someone else can jump in providing links.

[Adel-Magebinary]

I'd say we start powering up the OpenMage APIs to the next level with websockets. Then bring in more react / nextjs stuff to bypass most platforms. Then create a smart contract with ICO for the cryto community to support and invest so they get the return on the coin price. Once the capital is in place, the more developers / old m1 community will start to come in since they have extensions already. Without capital, things will be hard to move. The great resources open mage has is the existing OpenMage users and some of them are pretty big. They will be more than happy to support if it's easy enough.

PS:

Why don't we train AI to convert all Models to proper API endpoints? so does tidy up 3rd party extensions?

[Flyingmana]

@Adel-Magebinary can you describe what kind of business model you have in mind?
Right now the only plan we have is based on donations.

[Adel-Magebinary]

As simple as the "Enterprise Merchants 1m+ " subscription plans for the enterprise package features/updates & patches? Then share the profit with the "Coin holder" via smart contract?

[Flyingmana]

As simple as the "Enterprise Merchants 1m+ " subscription plans for the enterprise package features/updates & patches? Then share the profit with the "Coin holder" via smart contract?

but what can/could we offer as part of this. A subscription is nice, but you need to offer something in return. And for it to be profitable this means we need to have enough subscriptions to pay the people making it possible

[Adel-Magebinary]

Yep, I think the subscription package can be the "OpenMage B2C, B2B PWA conversation packages) and best & useful M1 extension (3rd party extension providers don't maintain them anymore away we can request them to become part of the ecosystem) from the extension providers that we add rest of APIs support. And also offer the backend & frontend PWA. This way, OpenMage can still function as a community-maintained M1 as monolithic. also, we won't break the compatibility with APIs & PWA. And also provide wordclass infra to support this semi-headless approach.

The best thing we could do for Openmage is powerful modern APIs based on the M1 framework so that m1 stays in the backend and is secure. This would be very appealing for agencies because it's modern m1 + pwa with rich features and easy to maintain and sell.

[Adel-Magebinary]

The PWA approach would also make it easy to bring web3 into the game easily so OpenMage can be functioning on chain too.

[sreichel]

After fund raising has started ...

I'll take your money and offer 24/7 support (incl. extensions).

[sreichel]

I'm curious about this discussion.

We always lacked of highly active contributors. After the initators stepped back, i spent a lot of time for this project. Nowadays it is mainly @fballiano, who kept it alive. Now you want to talk about PWA, enterprise subsribtions and so on ...?

Who should do this?

[fballiano]

Since that was a comment about me here (that was deleted) I want to make it clear that I never got paid a single euro by anybody to develop OpenMage, never! My customers pay me to develop THEIR stores, not OpenMage. And I dedicated countless hours to this platform (out of my own time and pocket) because I believe(d) in it. But this continuous fights, sincerely, killed my will, and they destroy(ed) OpenMage public image.

[sreichel]

@fballiano no offense meaning ... you get paid to work "on it". For me it ever was spare time activity. No employers. Maybe you understand why im not happy with that. (and o/c i know - or at least can imagine - the time you spent)

[fballiano]

I don't take offense but I strongly disagree, my customers (not employers, very big difference) gave me zero money for any openmage development activity, zero.
And it's extremely difficult to keep defending/promoting this platform when everybody (customers included) only see people fighting and arguing publicly, it's extremely damaging to everybody's work, and everybody's job.

Let's not assume things on other people's life, not everything is public, for a reason.

[ADDISON74]

What I did so fare was for pleasure because I like the platform, the community and I use it in many projects. If someone ever wants to pay me, I suggest offering the amount to others. Basically, we would all like a much bigger team dedicated daily to OpenMage. We could compete with other e-commerce solutions and when a critical point is reached, I wouldn't be surprised if the developers who abandoned M1 for M2 reconsider your offer.

[DegrizNet]

I don't know if you need my input but here it is anyway.. :)

I believe OpenMage needs marketing/promotion at the moment; everything else is secondary currently.

Let me explain with a few points why:

• With new users, there will be more demand for developers, and the main contributors, like @fballiano, would be the first to attract new clients/projects.
• With more users, OpenMage will gain more partners who could contribute to the project. Becoming supporting partners can contribute in different ways, especially financially.

To achieve that:

• OpenMage should distance itself from associating with Magento 1.9, as it has developed a bad reputation among people who perceive it as an old system, unsupported, and with numerous security concerns.
• Case studies and examples should be provided to show people what is possible on OpenMage, highlighting its many features, flexibility, and excellent speed. For instance, showcasing a store with a few hundred thousand products and a 100/100 Google score.
• Deals should be negotiated with main module providers and payment services to extend support for Magento 1.9 products and rebrand them for OpenMage.
• OpenMage should focus on the market that Magento 2 left behind (smaller and medium businesses), especially since they do not currently require PWA if there is a base theme with a 100/100 Google score.
• Implement a newsletter subscription with monthly emails.
• Provide more news on OpenMage for shop owners; currently, it is mainly geared towards developers.

After that:

• Admin theme should be modernized/redesigned to be mobile-friendly.
• Frontend theme could be changed and optimized for speed (lazy load, default CSS/JS combine and minify, image size optimization, and integrated banner system).
• Provide documentation with steps on how to install/configure a store for different cases with use cases.
• Implement an editor with page builder functionality and more.

If I can help somehow, let me know. If there is good plan defined I can assist with theme development. :)

[Flyingmana]

After giving it some time, to give enough chances for others to contribute to this discussion its now probably my Turn.
Iam putting some Headlines in, to structure the wall of text a bit.

established

I see it similar, OpenMage is starting to become an independent and established solution.
Although for me its not because of the code changes, but for the persistent contributions we receive
which is exceeding what many other OpenSource Projects receive.

We are statistically still in an slight upwards trend, and this covers only the main repository.

ecosystem and module vendors

What did not go so good is the drying out of the ecosystem,
many module vendors did take their Magento1 modules offline or even actively removed them.
For some of them it might be, because it would conflict with their SEO regarding new Magento2 modules,
so having them online has in some cases a negative financial effect on them.
But its also true that several are so nice publishing them now on Github to make them available to the community.

In order to be successful, it is necessary for the administrators of this project to get in touch with the extension/module providers for Magento 1 and convince them to continue the support for OpenMage.

From a negotiating point I have to state the opposite.
As administrators we might be mostly received as freeloader when "cold emailing" them without good arguments
and without bigger knowledge about their module.
The actual users and therefore customers of these modules have a stronger negotiation point there,
especially if they receive similar requests from multiple Developers.
This said, once communication is established, we obviously will support in case they have demands or requirements regarding OpenMage.
Something we could also do is providing a dedicated landing page with informations for module vendors.

What should also be considered, the number of new build shops is apparently still to low for new module vendors to appear,
and what I remember even with magento2 the business around modules is not very sustainable why many did instead take the SaaS route.
The positive there is, integrating with a SaaS is making it easier for OpenMage to connect.
On the negative, it will be rare to already have a module to integrate with it.
But, for approaching this I have somewhere a concept lying around which makes creating such integrations easier for OpenMage by having a simple to use no-code module which allows mapping events to internal queues and external APIs. (But thats becoming a whole different topic)

promotion

Lets continue with the Promoting point. Independently of the Budget we have available, there are 2 strong disadventages for us.
The first is, that all of the competing platforms have their promotions connected to Business Goals which in the end generate Money. This does work only in a very limited way for a donation based exchange.
The second is, that we are not actually in a good position in regards of features to compete with most competitors.
Even more, as we currently dont know who our target audience is.

For many of the initiatives of our contributors in the recent years the focus was on developers.
Now Developers are usually not the ones deciding, and apparently have only little influence when Management got sold on a different Platform. And in my opinion, from a developer point of view we are far away from beeing in a leading position, so it might not be the point we want to focus regarding promotion.
That said, the progress there was definitely a good thing, only the "business impact" might be a lot lower than some might say.

Using Stability as an Promotion argument also got harder, since we removed the LTS versions with 4y support timeframe. (I can speak from personal experience here, having to update my Ubuntu only every 4 years is a big selling point)

Performance and low maintenance. Thats continuing to be relevant factors. But hard to market, as its surprisingly rare to be a deciding factor.

Easy to setup. Thats my personal favorite for promotion. Because it means we can target People who use SaaS solutions like shopify, etsy and so on. Because they have every few years waves of users leaving, when they again increase some of the fees, so that could be a great audience to target. Although this would mostly increase the number of running instances, less the amount of money flowing into the ecosystem.

In any case we will need better defined Goals and a structured Plan for making promotion more promising.
Besides having a marketing texter would be beneficial.

Community

The Community is the most important part of the Future. Right now Iam confident OpenMage will easily survive another 5 years, mostly as time flys fast. Also most big hurdles are taken regards to process and php compatibility.
So even if I should step back one day sooner or later, things will continue to run and progress.

But while I appreciate the big effort many put into it, I want to remind everyone also think of themself and their health.
I will not guilt trip anyone, rather the opposite I recommend everyone to take regular breaks from the project.
Especially when life and work are not running so good. Dont forget we had some harsh years with many personal and business challenges, as well as big and many layoffs affecting the Tech sector. And as the signs seem, we will have another few harsh years in front of us.
So everyone, please put yourself first, OpenMage will survive, even if you are taking a longer break.

A wish

I would wish if we get more participation on organizational topics like for example with our list of Goals
https://github.com/OpenMage/organizational/blob/main/Goals.md

And also help to create the overarching Plans.

[ADDISON74]

I think that there are several directions that must be acted upon, and that quickly

• increasing interest in this platform. it is derived from Magento 1, dead and buried since 2020, but it has many new things that distinguish it from its parent. let's not forget the Bugtracker where the complaints were posted and which the Magento team didn't really take into account, the fact that it took a long time until we benefited from PHP7 support, not from Magento, but from Inchoo and many others.

• the extension developers and custom code providers should not pull the shutters on their work on the Magento 1 platform. if they do, it would be appreciated if they make this work fully or partially available to us. a few already did this for us and I would like to thank them all.

• attracting developers willing to join the community through periodic contributions. we especially need people who have advanced knowledge of certain areas of OpenMage. it can be observed that many times we do not have the expertise on certain particular aspects that appear.

• finding sponsors and promoting the platform as a professional, quick solution for small, medium and, why not, large stores. a real demo must be provided for any potential client to be convinced that it is worth choosing for OpenMage.

I agree that periodic breaks should be taken, but try not to become detached. Unfortunately, there is so much abandoned work from the past both in the PR/Issues sections and in Ideas too.

[pquerner]

Regarding custom code:

Thats why I was asking [1] if we should take the (good [2]) custom modules and put them in the core.
That way OpenMage is the future maintainer and theres no need to have such modules installed in the future.

But theres no battleplan available. Such as, are we (legally) allowed to do that, do we have to use their license, and so forth..
And most importantly: how do we not break shops who still have the 3rd party module installed to do X but now the core also does X and we're not conflicting with them? What if they extended X to do also Y? Do we put the module on a blacklist and upon Mage booting exclude all code executions by that module? (Essentially flipping the "enabled" xml path to false?) Does Y then not exist anymore? Does it break their shop?
Thats a tough nut to crack.

[1] #3485
[2] and what are good modules? Is there a baby module each one of us has so they can take care of it (regarding maintaining, or bringing into the core) or does it all fall to 1 person and PR's decide whether or not to merge it? (Wasting hours of work?)

[Flyingmana]

But theres no battleplan available. Such as, are we (legally) allowed to do that, do we have to use their license, and so forth

this part is actually easy, I have a bit of experience with licenses (and yes, we have to keep the license, we will not be able to change it without approval of the owners/authors)

Thats why I was asking [1] if we should take the (good [2]) custom modules and put them in the core.
That way OpenMage is the future maintainer and theres no need to have such modules installed in the future.

putting these into the core has always potential to backfire. Its making it a bit more userfriendly for non-developers. We can say we "added" new Features.
But then we also have to maintain it, are "responsible" for security issues (in a much higher way then if we would offer it as an additional module), and removing a module is always a lot of trouble and will lead to bug reports even years later. Not to mention the damage of reputation for everyone who build on these code and then needs to provide support to their customers because their modules break.
What I want to say, there should be a very good usecase for these to have in the core.

Generally I would say, we can add such modules via composer, as preinstalled 3th party modules, or even a meta mackage with recommended modules.
Then others can easy disable them or use alternatives.

[ADDISON74]

Even I have not been active in this repository in recent months, I want to tell you that after analyzing various shopping carts, I remain of the opinion that OpenMage is still a solution for everyone that wants a reliable product for a store with many products. Woocommerce, OpenCart, Shopware, Prestashop did not impress me. I am making this statement because I tried to migrate an OpenMage to them and I realized how many features are missing. I encourage you all to continue the work and not to abandon this wonderful project. It needs promotion, attractive themes and maintenance for the existing extensions.