Is Magento really opensource? [closed]

Question

For the last month or two I have been trying to wrap my head around Magento, with a moderate degree of success. While it has been billed as the next great e-commerce system, I have come to realize that although it has some pretty neat features... in reality it's a step backward for open source projects as far as development and community is concerned.

A look at the forums and it's full of developers complaining about the lack of documentation, the joke of an official wiki (there are people who post ads on the official wiki), and also reports of the upgrades breaking core functionality. Most of these posts and valid bug reports are ignored by the Magento staff. A request for some XML diagrams of the core modules has been ignored for a year!

The IRC chat is pointless as a lot of new users are greeted by moderators who tell them to RTFM!

It seems like there is a conflict of interest for the company that runs Magento: they now sell an enterprise version of Magento and their core business is in providing support for Magento users. I feel it isn't in their best interest to provide documentation for the over-complicated architecture (going through eight layers of folders to update just a single image).

Is Magento an open source system?

Answer 1

I understand your frustration all too well, but open-source doesn't mean documentation or support.

The attitude the Magento team has is "here's the program, here are some forums and a little documentation, from there on you're on your own". Sounds bad, but they've already released for free what must have taken thousands of person-hours to create. You have to be at least a little grateful for that.

As for documentation and support, you can't really expect them to keep working for random strangers for free. Besides, few of those people who complain about lack of documentation come back later on to write how-to guides when they finally understand the system.

Answer 2

Yes, without question Magento is open-source. Yes, it is a great product. Yes, it is slow.

However, Magento seems to be missing the rich community that often accompanies open-source. For example Drupal, Firefox, and Ubuntu have a crazy passionate base. The Magento community should step up to the plate to fill in the gap since the official documentation, wiki, and forums are lacking. It seems the further away from Varien you get, the better the community support.

I imagine Varien does this on purpose - since it is in their interest to have people purchase support from them.

Perhaps I am being too hard on them. The project is young, and the community is still evolving. It might help if there was a community-wiki-hub that was independently operated by the community. Sites like snippi.net, Stack Overflow, alanstorm.com, westwideweb.com, inchoo.net, and the IRC channel are doing a great job at fueling the community so far.

Answer 3

Magento is technically Open Source. However, it does not embrace the concept to its fullest and include open/transparent development. All development and direction is done behind closed doors.

They release snapshots of the code at their leisure and have zero feedback on bug fixes. We've been trying to get some sort of dialog going for core development fixes and additions, but nothing has happened so far.

Answer 4

As it uses an OSI approved licence for its community edition, the answer is yes, it is open source. If you don't like the product or service they are providing, feel free to band together with like-minded peers and fork it!

Answer 5

Yes, it is, however it is extremely slow.

Answer 6

I don't count this as open source as we have come to expect it. They have set up a system where what you contribute to the project is not necessarily incorporated for the benefit of all. By withholding features they are making you as a developer work for them. This is a bait and switch for the non-developers. If you start using it and grow to the point that you need one of the enterprise features you can't get it from the community because that feature is effectively reserved. So just move to enterprise with a 10 yr. cost of ownership of more than $89,000. I actually like the idea of a professional support organization on an open source project. But that is not what this is. I am running for the exit.

Answer 7

Can you download it, edit the source to fit your needs, and redistribute ever for commercial use?

So, it is open-source. The code, at least.

What about the documentation, support? It's another way...

Man, I'm sorry, but you can't think that if someone creates an open-source project, then it is bound to it and MUST follow the support every day... Maybe he should or, better, he will be great if do so.

Probably you're right; there is a conflict of interest, and maybe they used the open-source edition to grant popularity and then sell the enterprise-edition - I don't know; I just gave a quick look at Magento in the past.

Answer 8

Yes, the community edition is opensource under Open Software License v3.0.

The Enterprise Edition however, is not opensource.

Answer 9

Someone on Twitter was kind enough to forward this link to me, and so I'm dropping a quick note to say that I think that you wouldn't come to our forums and see that kind of negativity. I don't see it, and I'm there pretty much every day ;)

In regards to contributing -- I think someone was asking about contributors for Magento and yes, you too can become a contributor. And yes, there are ways that you can contribute to EE as well.

http://www.magentocommerce.com/blog/comments/be-part-of-the-solution-become-a-magento-contributor/

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me → rhonda at magento :>

Answer 10

Yes, Magento is an open resource. It is true that it is very slow, but it has great functionality and features than other open resources.

It is complicated to understand, but it strictly follows the MVC architecture.