Important changes on our marketplace

a.m. wrote:
Hello.
...don't get me wrong... you shouldn't do that... trust me :).
Best Regards.

@Andrei -
You can ask the vendor for source code if someone complaint regarding copy it from his extension.
Share source code is complicated for many vendors as some of extensions takes months to development and testing it.

Regarding PSD, you any vendor thing this is copied from his/her theme then he/she can compare it with demo site and register complaint with nopTeam and then you can ask to the vendor for PSD or any mock for verification and take a decision.

UPDATE: During the last several days we've received many emails from vendors regarding the requirement to provide PSD files for graphical themes. After some discussion we've decided to remove this requirement. Now it's not required to provide PSD files.

a.m. wrote:

That's great news :)

We think that you should take into consideration also requirement of source code sharing. In my opinion, this won't improve safety and quality of plugins, and significantly divide the community. Of course it would be relevant if you get information about copyright issues. And again, free trial available to download and detailed manual is crucial to check the quality of end product.

a.m. wrote:

Hello,
Are you serious Andrei? We already mailed you about the requirement and your answer was " you have to submit the PSD" then only theme will get approved and now you are saying you removed the requirement of PSD is this a joke? May be I am new to nopCommerce but by going through all this conversation nopCommerce is not mature enough to take the decisions and not even stable to it.
We made 11 themes PSD because of your requirement and with "your confirmation"(By mail) and spent 5 hours for each PSD, and now you are saying you are removing it..!!!!!!!!!!  All time and money we invested is again back to '0' !! What to do with it?  nopCommerce will keep on doing this then instead of earning, Vendors are losing their invested time and money.
We Clearly asked you Andrei, that are you sure about the requirement and you said "yes", and have to follow it strictly, Now what to do with your words?? should vendors trust nopCommerce or not? We have wasted lots of time to fulfill nopCommerce Requirements and you guys are still not clear with your requirements, if not cleared then why did you'll declared? We are struggling here to fulfil your requirements and the result is....??

Hi Guys,

The new requirements for the Marketplace is something that nopCommerce needed for a very long time. If nopCommerce is to compete with other platforms we need to ensure that it has a marketplace with high quality products in it. If a product does not meet the high standards then its place is not in the marketplace and you are free to sell it on your own websites. We absolutely support the nopCommerce team in their decision about the new requirements as we believe that this can only improve the image of nopCommerce especially when a potential store owners are hesitant which eCommerce platform to choose for their stores.

But instead of supporting the nopCommerce team in their decision to improve the Marketplace, we only see vendors complaining about it.

We must say that we absolutely support the PSD requirements.
Please note that the nopCommerce team assumes that if you are providing a unique theme for nopCommerce you should already have a PSD (or other format) design for that theme. We have absolutely no problem providing the PSD files since we already have them anyway although we have around 30 themes.
The fact that some vendors started to create PSD files for their themes now is just hilarious.
It just shows that their themes are created without a design at first place.
I don't understand how you could create a unique theme without having a design for it first. Actually I have an idea how you do it and we have already discussed this in another thread here but it just proves that we were absolutely right in our claims.
Please note that some of the most popular eCommerce platforms require a design first and only once the design is approved they allow you to submit a ready theme in their marketplace.
So keeping the design requirement is the only way to ensure that the themes in the marketplace will have a unique design and will have a really high quality. Having a design is a requirement but it should also not be enough to be allowed in the Marketplace if your design is quite similar to existing designs.
So it will be really bad news for the Marketplace if this requirement is no longer required.

We also fully support the source code requirement. We have nothing to hide so we have absolutely no problems to share our code with the nopCommerce team.
Actually nopCommerce team should require not only the source code but also access to the source control system (which we will gladly provide) so that they can see the full history of the code changes.
If you can’t trust the nopCommerce team then maybe your place is not in the Marketplace at all.
How do you expect your customers to trust you when you don’t trust the nopCommerce team itself?

Please guys stop complaining and show some respect to the nopCommerce team and please support them in their efforts to make a good Marketplace for everyone!

Thanks,
Nop-Templates Team

Hey Andrei,

We respect you and your team decision on everything. But, I got an IDEA :)

Why don't you leave all plugin's and theme's as it is. I mean don't delete anything, just flag them inappropriate for customers. Here is the complete list of my idea:

You should immediately start a VERIFIED VENDOR PROGRAM for nopCommerce marketplace.

Features of Verified Vendor Program

# Fixed yearly fee of around 100 USD to put your plugins / themes on nopCommerce marketplace.
# Upon verification, a vendor / nopCommerce user profile will show verified vendor badge.
# Verified vendor badge will be also shown on product detail page beside vendor's username.
# Only a verified vendor can verify their products on nopCommerce marketplace.
# NopCommerce will do an NDA with each verified vendor upon their registration for vendor program.
# To verify a product, a vendor needs to fulfill nopCommerce requirement. Either by sharing source code of plugin or PSD / design file in case of theme.
# A verified product will aquire a GREEN COLOR badge of "Verified Product" / "NopCommerce Verified" on both product box and product detail page.
# Any product which is not verified by nopCommerce or rejected during verification should display a RED / YELLOW COLOR badge saying "Unverified Product".
# A verified vendor must have all products verified. Any unverified products from a verified vendor will be eliminated / removed.
# Only a verified vendor must have permission to put link to their website to sell plugin / theme. Otherwise, it has to be available on nopCommerce website for download.
# If a vendor does not renew's vendor program next year, their profile along with all products will be marked unverified and an email to all nopCommerce users will be sent automatically that this vendor and their products are marked unverified from this date.
# Don't provide any points on unverified products. This means that the vendor has to be verified as well in order to verify products.

I think this should give more clear picture and idea to a customer who visit nopCommerce marketplace in search of any product. Now, this should be left upon a customer if he wants to buy something which is not verified.

Please let me know if you need our help in order to work on this. We will be happy to support nopCommerce eco-system as much as we can :)

Best Regards,
Atul Rungta & Whole NopAdvance team

nopAdvance.com wrote:

I don't think this makes any sense Sir.

Also it seems you not clear on bedge suggesion
nopAdvance.com wrote:
Here you first said unverified plugin should have red bedge then you mentioned unverified product should eliminate/remove from the marketplace and then you said all unerified plugin direct download from marketplace and only verified plugin have option to set vendor's shop link.

Nothing is a proper line.

nopAdvance.com wrote:
Here I don't see any security of vendor's extension and code theme etc.

New York wrote:

@Andrei
You have not yet addressed these concerns.  I don't see the need for the examination of source code without the additional protection of future tampering.   I would recommend that you take the DLLs, disassemble them to inspect, or better, find some app that can scan .net dll for malware (Shed??).   Then, create hash/CRC of the DLLs, so that users can then verify they have a version that has not been tampered with.