Future of Satchmo

[Philip Lee]

Hi,

I'm just downloaded Satchmo and am impressed by how quickly and easily I managed to get things up and running. However I notice that there isn't much activity on this or on the developers forum and no releases for coming up to 2 years and that it doesn't run on Django 1.5 - is this an indication that Satchmo is withering on the vine or simply that that it has reached a state where little or no further development is thought necessary

Regards

Philip

[Avraham Serour]

I hardly believe that no further development is necessary, it even didn't reach version 1

I also feel sad that development is not so active.

In any case, no releases doesn't mean abandoned, you can safely use the development version.

good luck

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[Malcolm MacKinnon]

This is an excellent question, one that I've been meaning to ask, and I hope some of the active developers weigh in with a response. I developed a web site with Satchmo that is generating a good return for my company, and the stores that use it to order products are very happy with the results. I'm using version 0.9.3 with Django1.4, modified the code to suit my needs, and it's obvious a lot of thought and work went into the code. It does concern me the Satchmo user group is not more active. It would be nice to see a up to date road map for the project or at least some comments from Chris and some of the others at least monthly on http://www.satchmoproject.com. I understand everybody is busy though....

[m1chael]

It would be nice to see more active discussions on this list.

[Chris Moffitt]

Obviously, I have drastically slowed down my work on Satchmo of late. The primary reason is that I have not been doing much (if any) django related work so I lost my momentum with Satchmo. I still read the lists, approve emails and do some minor patches/pull updates but that is about it. It is much harder for me to evaluate patches and contribute when I am not actively using the product.

All that being said, I continue to believe in Satchmo and think there are tons of good things we could do with it. I'm open to ideas on how to move it forward. I think the biggest help would be if users volunteered to play a more active role in developing new ideas and fleshing out how to implement them. I'm not asking anyone to take over the project but do need help from the experts in this group to get it moving again in the right direction.

We could focus on a couple of items:

- Getting some of the newer Django features included in Satchmo

- Implementing some of the cool additions that you may have already done

- Triage some high priority tickets

- Building a custom admin to make it easier to manage the store

- Probably lots of other items....

Anyway, I am open to feedback but need some of your input to help get things moving again.

-Chris

-Chris

[Marconius Cuthemustard]

Obviously, I have drastically slowed down my work on Satchmo of late. The primary reason is that I have not been doing much (if any) django related work so I lost my momentum with Satchmo. I still read the lists, approve emails and do some minor patches/pull updates but that is about it. It is much harder for me to evaluate patches and contribute when I am not actively using the product.

All that being said, I continue to believe in Satchmo and think there are tons of good things we could do with it. I'm open to ideas on how to move it forward. I think the biggest help would be if users volunteered to play a more active role in developing new ideas and fleshing out how to implement them. I'm not asking anyone to take over the project but do need help from the experts in this group to get it moving again in the right direction.

Developing software that you are not actively using must be really hard. What if a group of core commiters was formed? If these commiters are managing or developing Satchmo projects actively it will be a lot more natural for them to maintain the source. It might also be a good idea to have commiters that are specialized in a specific aspect of Satchmo: like products, settings, payment, shipping ... etc
 

We could focus on a couple of items:

- Getting some of the newer Django features included in Satchmo

- Implementing some of the cool additions that you may have already done

- Triage some high priority tickets

- Building a custom admin to make it easier to manage the store

- Probably lots of other items....

I have some very general ideas of how to improve Satchmo, but lack the vision for a concrete roadmap. Basically, I think that Satchmo should be more of a library than an app. That would make it infinitely easier to customize a Satchmo site, but installation could be kept easy via "skeleton" or example sites included in the project.

[David Unric]

I still find Satchmo the most complete Python/Django based e-commerce project, but even so you'll realize soon lot of work to be done to achieve functionality other free frameworks like PHP-based Magneto or Ruby's based Spree commerce offer out of the box. Not to mention several quirks I had to hack around as they hit me at unexpected places when working on the project and they also took significant amount of time. Low activity and users/developers base may affected this state.However your mileage may vary.

It's a bit sad so widespread language like Python didn't even get some serious paid commercial alternative of shopping-cart software.
I don't blame Satchmo, it's a great project with huge amount of work behind and wish it would get its attention back in the future as it deserves it.

[Philip Lee]

I would be more than willing to become involved in any future development, I am however new to Django and satchmo and I'm still trying to find my way around so my contribution at least initially would be limited. I suppose my question is really would you advise using Satchmo to build a fully functioning e-commerce site or would you advise looking elsewhere?

Thanks

[Luuk van der Velden]

I agree with David,

Personally I will keep an eye open for oppurtunities to be helpful. I have managed to extend satchmo for my own needs without too much effort, but I doubt whether such extensions in general are useful to be commited back to the upstream. It could be more handy to make a sort of public list with (github) links to the various apps/extensions.

What satchmo needs in my opinion is to be future proof (django 1.5), while staying robust.

as for your question Philip Lee, I can recommend using it to make a capable e-commerce site, as I have just finished my own.

Luuk

[Cody Goodman]

I also work on a site that still uses satchmo and have been wondering whether to move on to some other shopping cart. When I initially started fixing bugs on my clients site, I thought the problem was satchmo.. though there are so many other problems I'm fixing it's unclear whether that is the case.

It's good to know the project isn't abandoned though.

[Chris Moffitt]

I do have an option for people to help out - if they wish. The current hosting site for Satchmo is going away so I need a new place to host the site. If you have space or have suggestions, let me know.

Thanks,
Chris

On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 2:21 AM, Cody Goodman <codygman....@gmail.com> wrote:

I also work on a site that still uses satchmo and have been wondering whether to move on to some other shopping cart. When I initially started fixing bugs on my clients site, I thought the problem was satchmo.. though there are so many other problems I'm fixing it's unclear whether that is the case.

It's good to know the project isn't abandoned though.

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[Vladimir Vasilenko]

I have a VDS(VPS) that placed in Russia. This is can be interested for you?

Happy new year),
Vladimir Vasilenko.

--
Vladimir Vasilenko <vlad...@shumbely.com>

[Luuk van der Velden]

Hi Chris,

I have a shared host at webfaction, which is a hosting company which I can really recommend. I have space. The idea of hosting a mirror would be fine with me. Hosting the main site is a bit different, as I have shell access and things could go wrong :s

Luuk

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[Avraham Serour]

I believe you could just host the docs on readthedocs.org, in any case the bitbucket repository already have a wiki, why don't we concentrate on that? other than that I don't think it would be needed to pay for a hosting, unless you would want to host a demo

[Luuk van der Velden]

ok, so the website is down for me, is that confirmed?

[Chris Moffitt]

Yes, I can confirm the web site is down. I do apologize for this but I am working on getting it re-hosted and back up.

I have had several people reach out to me and very graciously offer to help with the site's hosting. I am trying to figure out which option will work best. I'm also a little short on time myself so bear with me as we work through this.

Thanks,
Chris

[Luuk van der Velden]

I am glad to hear you have options, good luck getting it back online Chris.

Greets,
Luuk