OsCommerce

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osCommerce

Developer:	Harald Ponce de Leon
Latest release:	2.2 Milestone 2 / August 17, 2006
OS:	Cross-platform
Use:	Webshop
License:	GNU General Public License
Website:	www.oscommerce.com

The correct title of this article is osCommerce. The initial letter is shown capitalized due to technical restrictions.

osCommerce (for “Open Source Commerce”) is an e-commerce and online store-management software program. It can be used on any web server that has PHP and MySQL installed. It is available as free software under the GNU General Public License.

1 Key Features
2 Community
3 Limitations
4 History
5 Branches
6 See also
7 External links
8 Sources

[edit] Key Features

osCommerce MS2.2 does not profess to be the "ultimate" eCommerce solution. Rather than attempt to be all things to all people, it provides a basic set of functionality that meets the common needs of all online businesses. By taking this approach osCommerce has avoided the pitfalls that many application historically suffer from (including its own forks) - too much functionality requiring overly complex implementation.

This does not mean that osCommerce is in any way "basic". Its ability to be augmented, via either community supplied add-ons known as Contributions or custom code, means that it can be customized to meet the specific needs of any business.

The following is a list of key features of osCommerce MS2.2 as stated on the osCommerce site. Following is a list of "Limitations" that provide more up to date information regarding this stated functionality.

Compatible with PHP 4 and MySQL - easily portable to version 5.
Compatible with all major browsers.
Multi-lingual English, German and Spanish by default.
Automatic web-based installation.
Unlimited number of products and categories.
Automatic setup of e-commerce payment systems: Authorize.net, 2Checkout.com, iPayment.de, PayPal.com, PsiGate.com, SECPay.com, and TrustCommerce.com; Many other add-on ecommerce payment systems, off-line (manual) credit card payments) and on-line payment processing.
Multi-currency support via manual update from exchange rate server.
Support for dynamic images (one image per product).
Supports physical products as well as product downloads.
Web-based administration module.
Database backup and restore.
Temporary and permanent shopping carts.
Secure transactions with SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) support.
Many shipping options including by weight, price, or destination.
Real-time shipping quote integration with UPS, USPS.
Zone-based shipping options as well as a free shipping option as part of Order Totals Module.
Full tax functionality, included compounded taxes, different zones for different products.

In implementing osCommerce one key decision is how to integrate the design. Unlike its forks, osCommerce MS2.2 does not come with a template system. This has been seen as a negative for some. However it does mean that designs can be hand-coded or a template system installed. There are several well-known template systems, namely STS and BTS as well as SMARTY and other lesser known techniques.

[edit] Community

Probably the greatest strength of OsCommerce is its large community. Being an open source system has allowed many users to strengthen the package in much the same way that Firefox has grown. Checking into their community allows searchable access to a large database of modules and tools that are all community supported and cooperatively upgraded.

[edit] Limitations

Since its release in 2003, a number of issues regarding its functionality have been identified by the user community and recognized, in part, by the development team. The following is a list of features that should be adddressed by anyone implementing osCommerce MS2.2:

UPS is no longer a standard shipping module.
The manual Credit Card payment is not PCI Compliant.
Downloadable products are not fully secure.
Image thumbnails are in fact full size images reduced for display which impacts bandwidth.
The PSI Gate module is no longer operable.

All of the above can be resolved and should not deter anyone from using this popular open source product.

[edit] History

osCommerce was started in March 2000 in Germany by project founder and leader Harald Ponce de Leon as The Exchange Project. While officially osCommerce is still in its development stage, the current Milestone 2.2 release is considered stable as evidenced by the thousands of stores around the world which sport the phrase, “powered by osCommerce.” The planned Milestone 3.0 is expected to be a major re-write of the program to incorporate an object-oriented backend, a template system to allow easy layout changes, and inclusion of an administration-area username and password definition during installation.

[edit] Branches

Because it is Open Source, a number of independent software forks have developed which take the basic osCommerce code and modify it with their own features and contributions. These include CRE Loaded, Zen Cart,xt:Commerce, osCMAX (formerly osC Reloaded).