2.0 Telerik Extensions

I noticed that Telerik extensions for MVC have been added to the 2.0 project.  Although I am a big fan of Telerik products, I don't think this is the right decision.

If the goal of the nopCommerce team is to grow nopCommerce in a fashion similar to Magento or other developer friendly projects, the inclusion of Telerik extensions will hamper this growth (If my assumption is way off base then you can stop reading).  Most developers who contribute modules or extensions will offer a few basic free mods/exts but leverage those towards a pay mods/exts.  This is where Telerik becomes a deal breaker.

A snippet from Telerik's site concerning the licensing of Telerik extensions.

"Telerik Extensions for ASP.NET MVC Commercial License (Developer License with Subscription and Priority Support)
This is a suitable option if you are building closed-source commercial products for redistribution or if you wish to avoid integrating open-source components into your application.
This license is provided per developer, so you need to purchase the appropriate number of developer seats from Telerik."

This means that if my "Custom (not free) Widget" uses drop-downs, grids, calendars, etc. AND I want my widget to look similar to the rest of nopCommerce, I will have to roll my own or buy a $999 license from Telerik.  Nothing against Telerik, their price structure, or the license agreement but unless I plan on developing multiple PAY mods/exts to justify a Telerik license this is a big hurdle and likely a deal breaker.

There are just too many other options out there that don't create this type of problem.  I think more consideration about the long term impact of this move should be considered.

Indeed a very important question! In my view, a developer has still two options if he wants to sell his mods/exts:

1. Buy a $999 license from Telerik
2. Simply don't use the Telerik controls

If option 2 is not possible, then imo Telerik should not be integrated.

btw. I've proposed the integration of Telerik on Codeplex a while ago: http://nopcommerce.codeplex.com/workitem/9976

I get the decision to use Telerik Extensions by the nopCommerce team.  I've used Telerik extension for web forms in the past and they are worth the license because web forms projects are so prevalent.  Because nopCommerce is open source it does not violate the Telerik license.  However, unless the nopCommerce team wants to be the only developers adding to this project down the road then using Telerik extensions does not seem to be the best course for nopCommerce.

Your points are both valid but with respect to #2 then that means that the developer will have to spend extra time styling a drop down list because nopCommerce uses the 'Vista' or 'Black' theme.  Not to mention if the drop down list uses advanced functionality like 2 columns, icons, etc.  Take a look at the stylesheet for one Telerik control.  They are no joke.

I just feel that if the goal of the nop team (I may be wrong!) is to grow this open source project into a viable profitable platform (for themselves AND third party developers) then the barriers to entry need to be as low as possible.  IMHO.

joebloe wrote:

I think you are absolutely right with your concerns. But if the decision to use Telerik Extensions has already been made, we can only sit back and see what happens. Maybe it will have the opposite/positive effect: If only "professional developers" can afford to buy a Telerik license, then the commercial nopCommerce extensions will have a high quality....I hope ;-) All other devs can still use the Telerik Controls for open source nopCommerce extensions or, if an open source extensions went popular, I think a dev should be able to buy a Telerik license afterwards and then sell his extension commercially.

IMO low barriers to entry are not always a good thing. For example osCommerce has a very low (or none) entry barrier and now over 6'000 extensions (contributions) but 99% of them have a very poor quality and "normal" people cannot install them properly.

I see your point about junk extensions/modules.  However, I don't think having high barriers to entry is a guarantee of quality exts/mods.  Magento uses a model that requires "licensed partners" to sell a certain number of enterprise editions or bring a certain amount of revenue to gain access to their marketplace in various forms.  The last time I looked at one of their agreements, the minimum level was around 50 grand a year.  The net result is still lots of crappy extensions with some notable exceptions.

At the end of the day it is very difficult to keep garbage exts/mods out unless you go with a closed model like Apple does. But that is not practical for an open source project.  I guess my main concern is that although Telerik extensions are flashy and (for some) easy to use, I just don't see the justification for  them when regular old html controls and an open source jQuery grid will suffice.

I appreciate your comments  They are well thought out.

I agree  with you. Using Telerik in nopCommerce 2.0 is the biggest wrong decision they made. Look at how horrible the grid helpers look like. I personally prefer jqGrid. And if they still want dual-license similar to Telerik, use Wijmo instead.

Let me copy one of my posts from other forum topic:

MVC helpers for jqgrid are not free. We chosen Telerik because it's really good and it's the only one grid that has MVC helpers. I don't think that there're a lot of developers who want to work with JSON.

Pronux is right. If you want to sell his mods/exts, simply don't use the Telerik controls. Use jqGrid for comemrcial plugins