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Joomla 1.6 Availability

    • Henning's Avatar
    • Henning
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    Re: Joomla 1.6 Availability

    Posted 13 years 10 months ago
    • Rich Bean's Avatar
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    Re: Joomla 1.6 Availability

    Posted 13 years 10 months ago
  • Re: Joomla 1.6 Availability

    Posted 13 years 10 months ago
    • from previously linked-to article:
      So here's what we did when Campfire went down. First, we posted regular updates on the status page of our company's website. We let people know we were working on the problem. As we figured things out, we shared the results. And if we still didn't understand something, we admitted as much. That's OK with us. What isn't OK is leaving people in the dark. Everyone's afraid of the dark when their data are involved.

      We also took to Twitter. My business partner David Heinemeier Hansson responded to more than 100 tweets from customers. "We're battling demons on all fronts and losing. It's pathetic, I know," David tweeted to one customer. "We're spending the goodwill we've built from years of reliable service like it's going out of style." "So sorry for the disruption," he wrote to another. "You can only say duh! so many times before people just think you're annoying. We're way past that," he wrote.

      We responded to every complaint and took the blame every time—even when people went overboard and launched into personal attacks. There was no fighting back, no attempt to save face. We messed up, we knew it, and we let every customer know that we knew it.

      And our customers responded with enormous goodwill. "37signals has been giving a free lesson in customer service and honesty the past few weeks," one customer tweeted. "Way to go on being awesome and communicative to your customers," said another. Such expressions of support were really heartwarming—and evidence of how honesty, openness, and personal attention to a difficult situation can turn the darkest moment into one of the brightest.

      We decided to give every Campfire customer a free month of service. We were down for only a few hours, total, but the downtime was spread out over multiple days. Besides, we didn't earn our customers' trust in December, so we didn't earn their money, either. We have thousands of paying Campfire customers, so this wasn't a cheap or easy decision. But it was the right thing to do.

      Finally, once we figured out what went wrong and took steps to make sure it wouldn't happen again, we wrote a full post on our product blog detailing exactly what had happened. We started with a general overview that could be understood by everyone. Being in the software business doesn't give you license to speak in code. Yes, some of our customers are technically gifted. But most of them aren't, so speaking in tech jargon can cause even more confusion.
    • Andy Miller's Avatar
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    Re: Joomla 1.6 Availability

    Posted 13 years 10 months ago
    • While the article is interesting there is a HUGE difference between downtime of a SAS product such as campfire where the entire service you are paying for is unavailable for an extended period and the situation with joomla 1.6. For a start RT was not down, our products are still available, templates and themes still continued to function, etc.

      The situation is that a new version of a particular platform was released and we don't yet have support for it. These are two completely different things.

      We are working on it as fast as we can. I cannot tell you specifically when things will be completed because we are developing in unchartered water here. A server didn't crash, a software update didn't break. We're trying to solve complex programming problems for a basically new platform with little documentation, no established examples, that is riddled with new bugs. We've filed about 8 rather major bugs with the new j1.6 installer alone. How can we deliver a template or extension when the install process doesn't work?

      Anyway these are not meant to be excuses it's just frusrating to not be able to convey why this is not an easy job to do and why it's taking so much longer than anticipated. If you were to ask any developer of large/complex/powerful J! extensions about their 1.6 experiences I'm sure you would get the same answers.
  • Re: Joomla 1.6 Availability

    Posted 13 years 10 months ago
    • I also would like to have RT 1.6 Themes and stuff, real bad, since i don't want to start a new project with 1.5 now, but if there are so many problems you need to fix first, take your time. I don't think you need to excuse for anything or to anyone here. I'm a customer too, but only because a customer want's something, and want's, and want's and want's there's no reason that he has to get everything he want's. Some things are just not possible or not in a given timeframe, so the customer has to wait, or just leave and take some other service... that's business, everywhere...
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    Re: Joomla 1.6 Availability

    Posted 13 years 10 months ago
    • Andy and team,
      please don't bother with this thread. You cannot please everyone, so in that case, just please me and get things done correctly.

      The RT team has already explained the situation, and has been honest about it. Things will be ready when they are ready.

      They gave a simple explanation: "we are working on it, and working on bugs", "it's close, but there is more testing to be done".
      And they gave a more detailed technical explanation: "blah blah components blah blah API blah installers blah blah"

      There is not much else they can do, except work on getting things done as efficiently as possible. No need for pressure.

      For those still pushing, please go and visit all the extension makers also. And push them to have 1.6 compatible extensions this week. Now. All the CCK extensions, the SEF extensions, the comment extensions, forums, galleries, ecommerce. Don't just pressure the template makers.

      You can always use the basic templates that come with 1.6. Do that first. And then see which extensions give you problems and go after them. They will still give you issues even when RT is ready.

      Mods... you can probably just post "Asked/Answered" for anymore requests. :)
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    • Rich Bean's Avatar
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    Re: Joomla 1.6 Availability

    Posted 13 years 10 months ago
    • Hi Andy,

      I wasn't trying to compare apples and oranges by posting that link. I understand that SAS uptime and a framework upgrade are two different animals.

      I'm one of the ones who is more than happy to wait 6mo+ to move to J1.6/7/8...And I'm more than happy to have things done right. I know someone mentioned DT Reg, which I also use and they massacared their last update because they released it too soon (and it wasn't even to 1.6)

      That said, to me, the big difference is the amount of status updates. Which is why I think many people are beginning to show some frustration.

      Just my 2 cents anyway.

      Still a RT supporter and will be for years to come!

      Rich
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    Re: Joomla 1.6 Availability

    Posted 13 years 10 months ago
    • Rockettheme is the best! That is why it is so frustrating. Its like dealing with your local energy company. You can complain and cry and threaten and cajole, but in the end... where else are you going to go? You have to keep the lights on. You have to deal with things you don't like and policies you don't agree with. There are other places to get J-templates but they aren't as good.

      I hate it that I can't let a client log in to the admin without them seeing GANTRY! I hate it that I have to use mootools instead of jquery (I know, I know... but I am talking about easily). I hate it that the RT man-hours are spread around to Wordpress and phpBB (and branding!). But here I am.

      We all hate it that we are in a holding pattern right now. Is anyone realistically working on a J15 project right now? I for one, have been waiting for the changes J16 is bringing to ACL for two big projects.

      Mr. Miller is correct in pointing out the differences between 37signals and RT. It is apples and oranges. One of the only similarities is that each company has a rabid fanbase. Its no surprise that both 37signals and RT can find diehard supporters even in their darkest hours. That Inc. article is nothing more than another step in the long walk of damage control by 37signals. Its PR.

      So anyways... RT team, take your time, get it right, continue to be the best and thank you for your collective efforts. But keep in mind, there are other template houses out there that have J16 templates already. Maybe in the field of open source CMSs adaptability is important??
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    Re: Joomla 1.6 Availability

    Posted 13 years 10 months ago
  • Re: Joomla 1.6 Availability

    Posted 13 years 10 months ago
    • My company is also planning to be solely developing in J1.5 until the 1.6/7/8 kerfuffel gets worked out.

      It sounds like RT is valiantly combating a host of unexpected problems and we're backing them up 100%. Maybe we're taking a cautious approach in preferring to give our customers a product that's guaranteed to work without issue, but we feel that's the best course of action for us.

      Don't think that we don't see the feature benefits of upgrading, but if the Joomla development cycle is so fast for the next few years, surely we can skip a version or two, allowing everyone to catch up and ensure that the future product will function properly and proper development will take place.

      That being said, RocketTheme Team, our company has to add our voices to those that request more visibility about what you guys are doing. You guys are great about it in some areas, and have room for improvement in others. As time moves forward and generations develop the internet, the users will want less secrets and more openness. No one is saying, give up the secrets you need to keep an advantage over the competition. We don't want you to give up what makes you so great at what you do. We are saying that a simple blog with basic updates would be nice from the head of the J1.6 team. You guys must do internal reports on some level and from those, maybe you can give us a bullet-list. As it was said before, our faith only wanes because we cannot actively see that you are making progress. You can turn almost every user's frustration around by following 37 signal's example and just give us at least a small line of dialog. You don't have to go as far as they did, but even something akin to your news section on the Gantry site would be fine. Once we see that progress is being made, many more people will become your champions, cheering you on and providing more words of support.

      Also, to those of you with frustration over the branding, we are living in an age of transition. Those that came before us have a different understanding of Copyright than we do. Theirs is one of atoms and scarcity, where making something and producing it took blood, sweat, and tears and where there is a real, cost associated with each product.

      Ours is a generation of abundance where everything is cheap and perceived value is little because the price is so low. When you make a product for a customer, don't you require attribution and payment? Don't you want them to link back to you somehow and drive more traffic and business to you? Rocket Theme and Gantry are simply doing the same thing.

      Why do you feel that having Gantry or Rocket Theme branding on your site is a negative? If anything, it's a positive. When I use these products, people who go to RT/Gantry's websites see that I am using a superior product. Both sites are well developed, look great, and obviously have a lot of hard work put into them. The direct benefit you get is that you provide your clients with someone who is experienced with RT and Gantry, you can probably tweak it and make it do things that would take your client's IT staff months to master. You are able to add even more value and power to what RT and Gantry are giving you and you're able to deliver it to your client with ease. You've already done all the heavy lifting of learning for them.

      I understand wanting to be superman or superwoman and appearing as though you're magically able to make something so magnificent in such a short amount of time. I want to be able to do that too, but the truth is that you and I aren't superman or superwoman. We're people with the right connections. Our superpowers are that we know the right products, look, and feel for the customer we're dealing with and we're able to make that happen for them. We save them money by not taking up valuable (costly) time with months or weeks of template development and instead hand them something that's very well crafted and functional in a short period of time.

      If you want to get paid to make templates, then go make your templates. They're yours and you can add or remove whatever branding you want. All that RcketTheme is asking for is a little attribution for the work they did. You can even take off their blatant image branding from the front of the site with a click and drag. Based on this perspective, is it too much to ask that they be allowed to display their name on the back-end and have a text copyright on the front?

      Spin the fact that you're using powerful tools into a positive thing!

      Take a moment and think about whether you deserve credit for someone else's blood, sweat, and tears. Would you want someone else to use and re-purpose your work without attribution? (possibly making a substantial profit from it)

      Forgive me if this felt like a rant. That was not my intent, simply a statement of my personal perspective on the branding issue. Thank you to everyone who has been so concerned and excited with RocketTheme's move to 1.6 and to the staff who we all know are working extremely hard to re-engineer their products for what sounds like a completely new platform.

      Please keep up the hard work and know that we all support you.

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