Hi everybody,

this question concerns my Guru-License, but unfortunatelly the whole iJoomla-Support-Forum ist full of SPAM that is not deleted since days, so I think it is better to post it here. The question is for Merav, so I guess she has Access to bouth Forums. ;-)

Hi Merav,

as you (hopefully) know I am a Guru-Customer since the begining. After the last "conflict" I thoght it is better to be quiet, because I didn´t think we could get to a solution.

Just to give you a very short overview about my situation:
I love the concept of Guru and I would love to see it growing. But for my (personal) opinion it grows to slow. The limited posibilities of gradual release, the Quizzes that count as "one lesson" in a gradual release, the missing flexibility to use Plugins in the lessons, the very limited payment-gateways, not even an offline-payment, the missing connection to the Joomla-ACL, stuff like that. I originaly thought this would be done much quicker.
With the new J3.x-Version it seems like some of the old features are not in anymore. When I use an article as a lesson, not even the Joomla-plugins work anymore.

A while ago one of your customers posted in the forum, that he would have a "lifetime-license" in guru. I never saw this offer, so I wonder, when did it came. I thought I would have seen all Guru-Advertisements. My situation is as follows:

While paying Guru since the first moment, I never was able to use it. I hope, that someday it will fullfill my needs and I would love to use it, but it is not that ready for me yet. And it is hard, to pay for this product a yearly fee while not using it. With a lifetime-license I would be much more relaxed in waiting for the features I need.

Now my recent Guru-License is expiring in 12 Days. And I wonder what to do. Hoping for a good future I am not really willing to put money in the software as long as I can´t use it. Do you have any kind of a lifetime-license for guru, so I can think about buying that lifetime-license and not worrying about my money running out ... ?

All the best, Julian!

Hi Julian,

I m sorry to hear that your experience using Guru has not met with your expectations. As things have moved forward with Joomla and many other products we offer some features have been added and some have been phased out. While this may not have suited your site. we do hope that generally we meet the needs of most of our customers.

We don't offer a lifetime licence and i am not aware that we ever did. Purchasing a licence to Guru lets you install it on as many sites as you with and use it indefinably. To use the support service and download updates then yes you must have a valid licence. We feel this makes it fair for our users, if you purchase the product it gives you 6 months of updates and support which is normally plenty of time to eliminate any issues. If your site is running ok then there is no need to renew your licence unless you want to upgrade the product.

I hope this clears things up for you regarding licencing, We value your long term support and we do try to make a product that generally satisfies most peoples requirements.

Have a great day

Hi Paul,

well ... but you didn´t tell me anything to the fact, that I am paying for Guru since the very first version and I was NEVER able to use it. You say that 6 Months is plenty of time to eliminate any issues, but the Issues that I adressed where never solved.

I give you one example:
Guru is limited to two payment-gateways since the first release. New gateways are promised since years, but they never came. There is not even a way for an offline- or admin-payment in the backend.

So what does it help me to be able to find out issues in 6 months ... when they are not solved? I can´t use Guru since the first release, but I paid for it since the first release. I paid some hundred dollars for it (It´s three years, so it should be about 500 Dollars, maybe some more), and till today I never was able to use it because of Issues like that one.

So you understand that I am not willing to pay for a subscription of a product that is not "ready-to-use" for me. But if I let it go now, the result is that I feel very, very cheated. As you can imagine: Paying three years for a product that can´t be used for me is not a fair business.

If you have a look on the Roadmap of Guru you will understand what I mean. Features are passed to a later date lots of times. Features, that where in the Roadmap a year ago are simply deleted today. Stuff like that.

I posted this Issue to Merav, because she knows the story and the differences we had about this topic. And she knows, that I am a guru-customer since the first day. I understand that you don´t know this story we had ... but if you don´t trust me, just check how long my guru-subscription runs and think about how I feel because I could not use it in the whole subscription-time ...

Guru IS moving in the moment. Last year the onliest thing that happened was the J3.x-portation, which was not really a "feature" for my opinion. But now the Front-End-Editing came as a new feature and I have some hope that Guru will be "ready-to-use" for me some day in future. But do you understand that I am not willing to pay for the product while I can´t use it?

This is why I asked you how to find a solution to that issues.
It would be enough for me, if I would be able to test Guru from time to time on my live-site but without integrating it for public. And as soon as I see it working for me, I would pay again for it. But in the moment ... it feels like I already have paid a lot for it, never got a usable product and you expect me to continue paying for it ...

By the way, please also compare my other subscriptions:
I am not a guy who is taking lots of products and never wanting to pay for it. I had a dev-membership for JomSocial in the time it was not GPL, I have many subscriptions on iJoomla and I have some other paid iJoomla-products even if I never used them. Digi-Store for example. It seemed fair to me to pay it, when I like to test it. I haven´t had the time to test it ... but that was not your fault. So bad luck for me, not your fault.

However ... in the case of Guru this is different. I am longing to use a good LMS. But Guru is not ready for that yet.
I paid for it, but I don´t feel like I am responsible for the fact that guru is not yet working ...
And believe me ... I have not only put money, but also a really lot of time in this software!

All the best, Julian!

Hi Julian,
If i can fix something for you please tell me what it is and i will have someone look at it for you . If you are wanting features that are not in guru, then it is not possible for us to write in those features for you as part of the product. All products will have some things that do not exactly fit a particular customers needs and this is unavoidable. Our products are open source and allow total customization.

I am here to help you but i am not sure what exactly it is you are wanting me to do for you

Well, okay, it´s about fixing:

since the first Release-Candidate iJoomla declined to integrate external payment-gateways like Virtuemart or jPayplans and said, own payment-gateways are following soon. None of them did come ... so how can I offer an offline-payment for users, which is basics in EVERY sales-driven script? And how can I manualy put a student into a course in the admin-interface? How can I delete a student from a course, but not from the whole Guru-System? So removing him from a SINGLE course?

I refer to the roadmap:
About two years ago it was clearly written that there will be an advanced gradual release of lessons. This based based on lots of discussions in the forum, while the original gradual release was also based on my input but only integrated partly. As the gradual release is an important feature for me and as it was on the roadmap, I decidet to stick with Guru. Where is it gone now? Looking on the roadmap it should have been done since a while ... but now it isn´t on the roadmap anymore.

When integrating Joomla-Articles as lessons, plugins are not working anymore since the upgrade to 3.x
This is not a feature-request, plugins are working on the 2.x-version. However, on 2.x the Layout did not work, so it was unusable either. But how can I get plugins to work on Articles as Lessons now?

Well ... just have a look on the forum on iJoomla.
The old forum was discontinued, there where lots of requests for stuff like I mentioned.
In thenew forum the same is comming up.
And also in the JED the reviews got worse and worse over the last year. But Guru also is not listed there anymore.

What I expect?
I am quite sure, you are not able to make the extension work for me, even if I don´t resist on features, but just on basic-stuff like the ability to offer a minimum on payment-gateways. What I asked for is if you can give me a chance to keep a recent version to test Guru on a regular basis in the recent version to check, if it will fit my needs someday.

As I paid some hundred dollars for it (3 years !!!) you can imagine, if I simply throw this stuff away, I definitely feel cheated a lot about this piece of software. The Developement of Guru was totally stuck in the time, iJoomla bought JomSocial, and it is still very, very slow.

What do you want to keep? A customer that feels cheated about some hundreds of Dollars?
Or a customer that at least keeps some hope for the future?

All the best, Julian!

Hi Paul,

my Guru-License expired one day ago.
You said, you would try to "fix" something.
But you didn´t even answer.

What do you want me to believe?
It does not look like you ever had an interest in solving anything.

Do you understand why I feel cheated after more then three years?
I tried to at least keep some hope.
But it´s difficult to keep hope if you are not even answering ...

All the best, Julian!

Hi Julian,

I still really don't know what you are expecting me to say or do, i am unable to change what has happened in the past, it is done and i can't change it. What i am able to fix is how things turn out in the future. I understand that you feel you have not been fairly treated in the past and i apologize for that, Having a constant conversation regarding what has happened is counter productive. How can we move on ? what exactly would you like me to do?

Please tell me what it is you would like done from now on moving forward and i can see if i can help you.

Hi Paul,

I mentioned it a couple of times: I wanted to have a way to test guru from time to time without paying for it, so I can jump in again if it will be ready someday.

However, in the meanwhile I have decidet not to work anymore with guru. So no need to do anything.
The result is: I feel like you only care for selling subscriptions but not about what happens to your customers.

For me this conversation was an interesting impression, because in the last weeks I also gave a first test to EasySocial and the difference in terms of support is really immense.

I don´t think you are really interested in my opinion ... but don´t you think that next time it would be a productive thing to simply extend somebodys subscription for free in a case like this one? The Roadmap was changed, promised features are missing, the developement was slow, the whole script always was very buggy and I never was able to use it. OK ... you got some hundred dollars for me. But in fact ... I think a behaviour like this destroys a value in reputition that is worth much more then a few bucks.

All the best, Julian!