As some of you may have seen on twitter http://twitter.com/home#search?q=%23alicommerce and other social networks over the weekend, the owner of BVCommerce Marcus McConnenel has alleged that the commercially available module for DNN framework AliCommerce is a direct copy of his BVCommerce ASP.NET ecommerce solution. Although we are not experts in forensics and copyright laws, Marcus presented a compelling set of evidence with his allegations here http://www.bvsoftware.com/alicommerce/default.aspx.

Considering that we still have not received a response from AliCommerce owner Frank Wang, and his website http://www.alicommerce.com has been offline since the weekend it is difficult not to assume the worst. In addition the DNN Corp has delisted AliCommerce module from http://www.snowcovered.com, we can only speculate that the allegations are true. This leaves one big question. What should I do with my AliCommerce module?

If you have paid for and used AliCommerce module in existing projects, it should continue to operate. However, in all likelihood there will be no technical support or updates available for this module at least not from AliCommerce unless a miracle happens and this issue is resolved between Frank and Marcus. In the meantime Marcus McConnenel from BVCommerce has pledged to develop his BVCommerce DNN module to replace AliCommerce. We hope he can deliver his solution quickly and match the price points that attracted users to AliCommerce as the only affordable DNN based ecommerce system.

This is certainly a bad situation for all parties involved. Especialy people that have purchased AliCommerce with their hard earned money and rely on it for daily business. We can only hope the situation takes a positive direction and the outcome will be a lesson to evryone.