osCommerce

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osCommerce

Screenshot
Developed by	Harald Ponce de Leon
Latest release	2.2 RC 2a / January 30, 2008 (2008-01-30); 137 days ago
Written in	PHP
OS	Cross-platform
Genre	Webshop
License	GNU General Public License
Website	http://www.oscommerce.com/

osCommerce (“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 Limitations
3 History
4 Branches
5 References
6 See also
7 External links

[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 almost all online businesses. By taking this approach osCommerce has avoided the pitfalls from which many applications (including its own forks) historically suffer: too much functionality, requiring an 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 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:

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, but third party osCommerce templates are available. 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, including STS and BTS and SMARTY.

[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. For example:

UPS is no longer a standard shipping module but can be added.
The manual Credit Card payment is not PCI Compliant and should be used for testing only.
Downloadable products are not fully secure but can be secured.
Image thumbnails are in fact full size images reduced for display which impacts bandwidth.
The PSI Gate module is no longer operable and needs to be replaced with an XML version.
The lack of a plug-in system makes add-ons difficult, since each add-on modifies the core application.

[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 of November 2007 the osCommerce site says that there are over 12,000 'live' websites using the program. [1]

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

Forks include CRE Loaded, OSC Max, xt:Commerce, Holbi's TrueLoaded and ZenCart. Please note a fork is not the same as a loaded version of osCommerce. Loaded versions are still osCommerce. Forks are not.