Long Term Support (Lts)

Hello,

we are very exhausted from the way how the things move very fast and not consistently in CsCart. There is always some update which solves many bugs but also adds new features, often template breaking or even addon breaking ones.



What we think may be the possible solution not only for us but for everyone here is a long term support (LTS) version.



Now, I hope You are reading this and not throwing it immediately into the bin. Please, think about it, I think it would help you a lot with the community and there won't be so much hate against You for the changes that are proposed with almost every update.



Imagine this: You would say that some version, for example 4.2 (would prefer it in 4.1.x branch though), will be LTS. That would mean there will be only non-breaking bug and security fixes for one year or at least until another LTS version release. So you would be safe to update even with lots of 3rd party addons and 3rd party templates at preferably all times. This is possible to do with let's say two people half-actively working on it. Those updates would be the 4.2.X updates (4.2.1 → 4.2.2 → 4.2.3 → …).



Alongside the LTS version you still will be creating a new version with removed addons, theme-breaking changes and new features, whatever You like. But You won't be forcing everyone so hard to do the update, this will be their own choice. Of course, only for the time until You provide new LTS version (4.4 perharps?) then you will abaddon the older version (bug tracker and occasional bug fixing should stay for those unable to switch but won't be promised).



Great thing can be choosing what version (LTS or not) you prefer in settings so the upgrade center can distinguish between them and offer you bleeding edge version or LTS stable version to use.



I assume that this would benefit customers extremely. I know that you won't get that much bug reports for new non LTS versions but I think there are always lots of people wanting to go the non LTS way because they do not need to care that much about updating every three months and the need to wait for updated addons (encoded, not able to edit them) and themes.



Everyone, please post Your ideas how to do this even better than I wrote it. Take this as an idea but I want to see this idea go live because in our company everyone is so frustrated from all the constant changes and the need to keep with them because there are bugs and you can't always watch bugtracker and apply every fixed bug there, not to mention that not everything fixed is posted here.



Please, consult this in Your company with Your employees and take it seriously, this really means much for our company.



Everyone is welcome to comment on this!



Thank You for Your time that it took to read this, and please, serious answers only.

In an ideal World, this would all be great, but the key factor here is $$$.



More versions to maintain = more costs.



More costs = higher sale prices.



Higher sale prices = Less sales.



Less sales = less cash



Less cash = less development+maintenance+support, etc.



Good idea, but I don't think it really suits the business model, particularly for an ever-changing landscape as web development and ecommerce are.

[quote]ever-changing landscape as web development and ecommerce are[/quote]

The business isn't changing that much other than mobile and responsive styles. But having a product that continually changes its internal architecture makes it difficult to invest time and energy into speculative development for new releases (which will probably be obsolete before investment is recovered). This is spoken from a 3rd party addon and custom developer perspective.