What?... Still Not Joomla v1.6-Ready??

wmbell wrote: Are you trying to make us laugh, while proving my point about timely releases??

No, the link I gave you was in respect for your question for additional information about API changes that need to be worked-around.

CB 1.4 RC, working fine on Joomla 1.6 has been released to professional members (existing and any new one). CB 1.4 Stable will be released free to all members on February 14th. See homepage for announcement.

EDIT: removed Thread Closed message as it got reopened, see below.

Ok, now that things have cooled down a bit , and that we could sleep a bit to compensate for 3 weeks of very hard work of getting CB 1.4 to an Release Candidate quality level (means usable on live sites with close monitoring), I'm unlocking this thread, so others can chime in and that we all can have a constructive and respectful discussion.

Before I reply myself, I would like everyone replying in this thread to have read first
the excellent blog "Free Joomla Support" by Brian Teeman and our Code of Conduct

We are perfectly ok with constructive criticism (we actually like it!) and different opinions (and we respect them too!). But we are not ok with personal attacks and mistrust or disrespect of others

----
Ok now to reply to the frustration:

As a reminder, CB is *free* like beer, and the community support in the whole forum is *free* too, except for the 2 advanced and professional priority support forums. CB exists thanks to community contributions, and personal time (and money) investment from the CB Team and CB Workgroups, as well as to the contributions from memberships, donations, and other sales on this site.

Just to share our own frustration in this release: our aim and goal was to release CB 1.4 next day after Joomla 1.6 stable. And for that, we have been following the Joomla 1.6 API (actually because of this preparation since months already, CB 1.3.1 installs fine on Joomla 1.6 beta, RC and stable, and runs perfectly fine in last Joomla 1.6 beta as well). However adapting to last minute changes in Joomla 1.6 stable API showed to be more complex and uncovered more bugs in Joomla 1.6 that we had to troubleshoot and workaround. As a conclusion, the changes were too big to release directly CB 1.4 Stable. Now such thread titles like this one are accusatory to say the least, and certainly not corresponding to our code of conduct. We however decided to leave the thread as is unedited and open until release of CB 1.4 RC.

Up to now, RC releases were only tested inside CB Testing workgroup, a team of selected volounteers poking right now at CB 1.4 RC as well. Due to demand, we have decided to extend the testing to another group were feedback isn't an obligation like in CB Testing workgroup, but not to make it a public testing, to keep feedback flow in manageable size. At same time we wanted to thank you people supporting the CB project. Thus the decision to give CB 1.4 RC to the CB Testing workgroup AND to Pro Members for the testing period now.

CB 1.4 stable release has been now scheduled for February 14th, and will of course be free to everyone.

Those who can't wait and don't want to pay for a membership still can use CB 1.3.1 on Joomla 1.6 with a few restrictions documented in CB 1.4 closed tasks, most having even patches that you can apply.

Or... of course, if we notice someone contributing or helping positively others above average in the forums, we will be honoring that as well.

So if you understand correctly the above, it's not about commercial or becoming rich, but about having a sound and solid model to fund the work on CB. Next big step to release will be CB 2.0.

Thus, back to work.

beat wrote: Ok, now that things have cooled down a bit ... I'm unlocking this thread, so others can chime in and that we all can have a constructive and respectful discussion.

Before I reply myself, I would like everyone replying in this thread to have read first
the excellent blog "Free Joomla Support" by Brian Teeman and our Code of Conduct

We are perfectly ok with constructive criticism (we actually like it!) and different opinions (and we respect them too!). But we are not ok with personal attacks and mistrust or disrespect of others

Just so you know, I had no intention of making this a "personal attack", "mistrust", or "disrespect" issue. And in my opinion, I still don't believe that it has made it there, or should ever do so. In fact, I've been a loyal user and advocate of CB for some time now, and I have been a paying subscriber at least twice.

I did read the suggested material. "Thank You!" And although Brian attempts to negotiate both sides of the spectrum, reading the entire article definitely puts a shadow on one side slightly more. Especially, when he refers negatively about the "User" but not so about the "Developer".

beat wrote: Ok now to reply to the frustration:

As a reminder, CB is *free* like beer, and the community support in the whole forum is *free* too, except for the 2 advanced and professional priority support forums. CB exists thanks to community contributions, and personal time (and money) investment from the CB Team and CB Workgroups, as well as to the contributions from memberships, donations, and other sales on this site.

As much as I've benefited from Community Builder, I've also invested quite a bit of time editing, fixing, massaging, tweaking, and upgrading it, so that it stays stable. Unfortunately, to many of us, it seems more like a "free like a puppy" experience.

beat wrote: Just to share our own frustration in this release: our aim and goal was to release CB 1.4 next day after Joomla 1.6 stable. And for that, we have been following the Joomla 1.6 API (actually because of this preparation since months already, CB 1.3.1 installs fine on Joomla 1.6 beta, RC and stable, and runs perfectly fine in last Joomla 1.6 beta as well). However adapting to last minute changes in Joomla 1.6 stable API showed to be more complex and uncovered more bugs in Joomla 1.6 that we had to troubleshoot and workaround. As a conclusion, the changes were too big to release directly CB 1.4 Stable. Now such thread titles like this one are accusatory to say the least, and certainly not corresponding to our code of conduct. We however decided to leave the thread as is unedited and open until release of CB 1.4 RC.

Okay... So, just to clarify... You're saying that CB 1.3.1 will install "fine" on Joomla 1.6 but will only run "perfectly fine" in the last 1.6 beta?

If this is true, and given the time the thread was started, how can this title be construed as "accusatory"? At the very least it should be taken as a compliment, due to the exemplary expectations the CB Team has set. In reality, the title was me being surprised, not accusatory.

beat wrote: Up to now, RC releases were only tested inside CB Testing workgroup, a team of selected volounteers poking right now at CB 1.4 RC as well. Due to demand, we have decided to extend the testing to another group were feedback isn't an obligation like in CB Testing workgroup, but not to make it a public testing, to keep feedback flow in manageable size. At same time we wanted to thank you people supporting the CB project. Thus the decision to give CB 1.4 RC to the CB Testing workgroup AND to Pro Members for the testing period now.

I respect this move, however releasing CB 1.4 RC the day after the membership sale goes away give the customer the perception that they are being "cheated". Maybe I would have paid the sale price, but how was I to know when you were going to make your release? The forge showed the team was already behind schedule and "overdue".

Members (customers) want to feel secure in their purchases and want reassurance that their investment will produce a return. This, in itself, is one of the delineators between a customer and a donator. Donators have previously seen a return, so they invest for the betterment of the project.

beat wrote: CB 1.4 stable release has been now scheduled for February 14th, and will of course be free to everyone.

Yay! :woohoo:
Thank You!

beat wrote: Those who can't wait and don't want to pay for a membership still can use CB 1.3.1 on Joomla 1.6 with a few restrictions documented in CB 1.4 closed tasks, most having even patches that you can apply.

Will you please point use to some of the patches to apply? Thanks!

beat wrote: Or... of course, if we notice someone contributing or helping positively others above average in the forums, we will be honoring that as well.

What qualifies as "helping positively others above average"?

beat wrote: So if you understand correctly the above, it's not about commercial or becoming rich, but about having a sound and solid model to fund the work on CB. Next big step to release will be CB 2.0.

Thus, back to work.

Thanks, for all your hard work!

For those reading this thread an wondering ...

Community Builder is most likely one the the largest (code-wise) extensions there is and most likely the one that most closely integrates with the underlying CMS (extending its user management process, integrating with its ACL, etc.). And all of this without compromising the CMS code in anyway (no hacking) or tampering with other database tables.

So, it is safe to say that when the underlying CMS API changes drastically, we would also have to make drastic changes. This is not an easy task and for free extensions it has proven to be a huge burden. Some may claim that the Joomla API does not show enough respect for backward compatibility, and I tend to agree that much more could be done. Joomla 1.5 had a legacy layer - Joomla 1.6 does not.

Adapting existing extensions to new CMS versions while maintaining previous compatibility is something very difficult and very challenging. I am not aware of any other extension (of similar magnitude as CB) that has a single installation that will work on 4 different codebases (Mambo, Joomla 1.0, Joomla 1.5 and now Joomla 1.6).

Also, one should add to this the fact that it looks like Joomla 1.6 will not be around for more than 15 months as Joomla 1.7 is planned. This fact can easily deter free extension providers to just skip this version. It is very logical if you think about it. Why go to the pain and effort to adapt to a CMS version when in 15 months it will become "obsolete" because of new version? I am not saying that Joomla 1.5 is now obsolete. On the contrary, smart/safe/logically thinking website designers/administrators/masters will suggest to their customers/managers/superiors to use the more stable Joomla 1.5.22 and monitor the Joomla 1.6 release cycle.

Personally, I will not do anything critical or even slightly important using Joomla 1.6 until I see at least 2 point releases and analyze what has been fixed (I am sure there are security issues that need to be uncovered and I don't want my site to be the one that helps identify them!). And if by the time Joomla 1.6.3 or 1.6.4 is out I can see Joomla 1.7 a few months away, then I will wait for that to be released. Why go through the painful process of migrating twice?

Sorry for ranting on ...

I am just trying to send a message that CB working on all these codebases is not an easy task and should be appreciated - certainly much more than I perceived the original thread poster did when I read the post and the replies in this thread.

And if a free extension such as CB has a model (commercial, structure, team, developers, community, supporters) that makes all this possible, then this is a good thing. Granted it can be improved, but "...perfect is the biggest enemy of good..."

Reference link I just found which supports some of the facts posted above can be found here: blog.joomlaworks.gr/why-were-not-porting-k2-to-joomla-16-the-life

WOW... beat and nant, you guys make an awesome team!

:laugh: