dashCommerce

Good day

I was updating some systems in my dashCommerce v3.0 installation, when I ran across a DLL for which no source seems to be provided

MettleSystems.Licensing.dll

This file is included in the Dependencies directory, and is used in various places.

Now, don't get me wrong, MettleSystems and the folks running dashCommerce.com have every right to commercialize part of the product.

But being an OPEN SOURCE core system, there there should not be any CLOSED source in the CORE functionality! What worries me is that this DLL is referenced by EVERY SINGLE page (it is incorporated into the master page). Is it making calls to MettleSystems? Is it logging credit card activity? Probably not, but the point is that I can not tell. If I paid someone for the software, I could sue if something went wrong. Since it is free, the legal onus is on me (and other users) to make sure we know what it does.

Can someone please point me to the source for this DLL so I can build it myself?

The source for this assembly is not available. Unfortunately, many folks do not abide by the license of dashCommerce, so the Licensing assembly takes care to enforce the license and it also has the licensing plumbing necessary for the folks that sell providers on dashCommerce.com.

admin:

so the Licensing assembly takes care to enforce the license

Um, perhaps I missed the fine print, but could you please point me to the pertinent license text that the DLL is protecting?

And if you want to make sure that it doesn't send any CC info to MettleSystems :) then you can try Reflector to peak into the source.

And just a strong suggestion regarding open source and transparency...

Don't include hidden code such as this.

It's one thing to be up front and say "if you run our code, you will also be running our DLL that will provide branding and secret handshakes to allow dashCommerce to provide commercial plugins".

 It's quite another thing to sneak the code in there with the v3.0 release (I looked, and it's not there with the RC1, as far as I can tell).

Please indicate your intentions on this DLL. If "closed" DLLs will continue to be in the plans for dashCommerce, I and perhaps other integrators will want to know before we invest too much time into a potentially unsecure implementation of an open source COMMERCE system.