[lug] Open Source Linux POS Software

[Davide Del Vento]

I don't really have a good answer, but since nobody answered (yet?) mine
will be better than nothing.

Last time I checked MySQL was GPL, which is fine for everything you want to
do as long as you don't change its source code and give it to others (which
I'm 99% sure you will not do), so I would not rule that out. Also, it seems
to still be the most popular DB, which will limit you a lot if you avoid
it. I personally like PostgreSQL more, though.

In my opinion PHP is not worse than other languages in making code not
secure. However I do not like it. And many people who use it tend to not be
strong on security and robustness, which you seem to care about. I'm sure
you can find not-robust and not-secure software written in java, python, bf
or your favorite language, so again, I would not rule PHP out just because
it's PHP. Look at what you find. IIRC, wikipedia is built in PHP, and it's
certainly a pretty scalable, robust and at least decently secure website.

I have not set a POS in either Linux or other OS.

On Thu, Jan 19, 2017 at 3:23 PM, <stimits at comcast.net> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'm looking at helping a friend set up at least a back end Point-of-Sales
> (POS) software in a service and retail oriented shop on Linux. I'm hoping
> to avoid some of the commercial licensing dramas going on these days.
>
> I definitely don't like what I see related to commercial licensing and use
> of MySQL, and I have had very pleasant experience with using PostgreSQL
> (especially since this may go into distributed database services), so this
> is high on the list. Maybe I'm wrong, but so far I'm summarily dismissing
> anything requiring MySQL.
>
> I don't mind Java as a language, I like working with it, but it seems
> recently news has shown there may be some licensing drama there too (though
> this would depend on the Java support packages instead of the end Java
> programs using those packages)...does anyone here have any comments on
> whether Java licensing is a risk for people using software running under
> Java on Linux? I'm especially interested for cases where the regular
> Fedora/CentOS repositories have the Java support software...there is no
> chance of using something requiring a special install.
>
> It seems that most of what is out there is either Java or PHP, and as easy
> as PHP is to work with, the web-based PHP solutions seem too high
> risk...how much should PHP be trusted these days with security? Has this
> changed?
>
> Does anyone here have any experiences to share with setting up open source
> POS software under Linux?
>
> Thanks!
>
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