[lug] Open Source Linux POS Software

Mon Jan 23 10:02:49 MST 2017

He already has a commercial/paid POS system, but it seems incapable of some of the features he is about to need relative to simultaneous online and in-person purchases (hopefully lots of online, both US and international!). His POS hardware is already in place, and money is of course always an issue. The existing software seems to use only a local file for tracking things, not a real SQL database, and especially not with distributed database functionality (think local shop synchronized with a remote colocation or other network provider service...his shop cannot possibly handle the bandwidth of a real web site, and definitely not survive relying on networking for database operations).

I'm currently trying to find out more about the hardware itself and what options are available for dealing with the existing data format (such as either replacing it or "upgrading" to some other version). Some paid software might be acceptable, but I don't have the required information yet to know what he can afford (he'd be throwing out software he already has the license for). I'll check out OFBiz, and probably later today I'll know more about his existing POS hardware.

----- Original Message -----From: Quentin Hartman <qhartman at gmail.com>To: Boulder (Colorado) Linux Users Group -- General Mailing List <lug at lug.boulder.co.us>Sent: Mon, 23 Jan 2017 15:50:56 -0000 (UTC)Subject: Re: [lug] Open Source Linux POS Software

Years ago I setup OFBiz (http://ofbiz.apache.org/) for a small business and it seemed ok. I got them using it, they were happy, and after a couple months I never heard from them again, so they either were able to just keep on trucking or they decided they hated me.

Out of curiosity, why not use one of the tablet-based POS systems from Square and others? Those seem to work well, and licensing isn't really an issue since they are using them essentially as SASS to drive people into their CC auth service.

Q

On Fri, Jan 20, 2017 at 1:53 PM, Jonathan Eidsness <jonathan.eidsness at gmail.com> wrote:

I'd suggest Odoo (odoo.com). I've mainly looked at it as an ERP program. The POS component looks pretty slick, though I've not used it. 

On Jan 20, 2017 1:26 PM, "Davide Del Vento" <davide.del.vento at gmail.com> wrote:

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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