OsCommerce
Encyclopedia
osCommerce 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
.
and its dependency on osCommerce users linking their sites into the osCommerce Live Stores listings.
In November 2010 the development of osCommerce v2.2 was met with another stable release. Version 2.3, as it was branded, takes advantage of the benefits of Tableless web design, and includes a number of social networking tools.
Version 3.0 has been released on March 31st 2011 and is 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.
, osCommerce is one of the earliest PHP based Open Source shopping cart software distributions. As such, it has spawned a number of forks
including Zen Cart
, and Batavi
Web server
Web server can refer to either the hardware or the software that helps to deliver content that can be accessed through the Internet....
that has PHP
PHP
PHP is a general-purpose server-side scripting language originally designed for web development to produce dynamic web pages. For this purpose, PHP code is embedded into the HTML source document and interpreted by a web server with a PHP processor module, which generates the web page document...
and MySQL
MySQL
MySQL officially, but also commonly "My Sequel") is a relational database management system that runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. It is named after developer Michael Widenius' daughter, My...
installed. It is available as free software
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
under the GNU General Public License
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
.
History
osCommerce was started in March 2000 in Germany by project founder and leader Harald Ponce de Leon as The Exchange Project. As of August 2008 the osCommerce site says that there are over 14,000 'live' websites using the program. This number is almost certainly conservative, given the inclusion of osCommerce in hosting panel application installers such as Fantastico (web hosting)Fantastico (web hosting)
Fantastico is a commercial script library that automates the installation of web applications to a website. Fantastico scripts are executed from the administration area of a website control panel such as cPanel...
and its dependency on osCommerce users linking their sites into the osCommerce Live Stores listings.
In November 2010 the development of osCommerce v2.2 was met with another stable release. Version 2.3, as it was branded, takes advantage of the benefits of Tableless web design, and includes a number of social networking tools.
Version 3.0 has been released on March 31st 2011 and is 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.
Versions
There are currently two supported stable releases of osCommerce. Versions 3.0 and 2.3 are developed as two independent programs, and as such do not share code. Contributions, the official name for the open-source community developed plugins, are developed for either 2.x or 3.0, and are incompatible with one another. There is much more support, and are many more contributions for osCommerce version 2 releases than version 3. Contributions are updated, or released daily.Branches
Distributed under the GNU General Public LicenseGNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
, osCommerce is one of the earliest PHP based Open Source shopping cart software distributions. As such, it has spawned a number of forks
Fork (software development)
In software engineering, a project fork happens when developers take a legal copy of source code from one software package and start independent development on it, creating a distinct piece of software...
including Zen Cart
Zen Cart
Zen Cart is an online store management system. It is PHP-based, using a MySQL database and HTML components. Support is provided for numerous languages and currencies, and it is freely available under the GNU General Public License....
, and Batavi