How is this going to work?
Another idea: Why not have an option for DNN to have a nice long list of modules which can be installed on demand during DNN Installation and the installer loads and installs these modules from the web? Something like Perl and CPAN or JQuery and the theme roller and personalized zip? Let modules like NB_Store have an equal chance to be installed like the DNN Store. Have the support forums for these modules hosted on DNN forums so that they get more visibility. I am sure a lot of users do not know about CodePlex. Last, have a better way to search for these modules and display more info. Something like the plugins for Jquery where a list of categories is listed which the modules in each category.

All,

couple of quick points:

Sebastian commented

"There had been a decision by the DNN Corp. to decrease visibility of existing extensions - AFAIK in order to increase options for other open source extensions to become bundled with DotNetNuke framework in the future. Bundling might be substituted in the future by an integrated download option, like for Firefox Add-ons"

Just in case this is misinterpreted, we are not trying to encourage sales of modules by making existing core projects less visibile - they're bundled as always, and can be installed via the available extensions dialog in host->extensions. Instead the intent is to make core projects true "codeplex" modules and develop plans to help with that. This means that conceivably any dotnetnuke codeplex project could become part of the bundled install, allowing for "best of breed" modules to win out, and not artificially limiting the list to only "traditional" codeplex modules e.g. if a better contact module was available in time it could become a core module, and utilise any services we offer e.g. the project release tracker and it's testing stages i.e. installation, xhtml and security testing.

Secondly, there was mention of a desire for a review program. The DotNetNuke marketplace offered this for a time, and it had only limited success. Only some module developers were happy to pay for reviews, and realistically the effort that was needed made this an expensive, loss-making exercise. I don't know of any plans to reintroduce it. Related to this, I know the snowcovered team have plans to enhance the website this year, so hopefully it will become a better place to gather information/ratings before considering a purchase.

FYI Shaun briefly mentioned better integration of dotnetnuke and snowcovered in a recent interview : http://howsoftwareisbuilt.com/2010/02...

Cathal

I don't think the sellers on snowcovered can change the ratings or reviews on their products. I know they can choose what questions they post. Because I asked some sellers some questions and I have never seen these questions online.

As for bundles there should be more flexibility on choosing which bundles to bundle. Most of the bundled modules are developed by volunteer developers or some lead developer. If the developer is too busy to work on the module, I get the sense the module doesn't go forward and progress comes to a grind.

Pushing all the modules to CodePlex is a good idea. Each CodePlex project has it's own discussion forum, announcements, download.. etc pages. and that taken the buron off the corp from maintain this stuff. Plus when modules are placed in CodePlex, all users will know CodePlex is THE place to get free open source DNN modules. Hopefully this drives the open source developers to place their modules on CodePlex instead on their own sites. I am sure those modules have less visibility because they are found only (if not linked from other DNN sites) from persistent web searches. There are many good open source modules which do not get announced on dotnetnuke.com. In fact, I announced Vivo Social a few days ago because it deserved to get more visibility.