Open Source Posts

Are you one of the many developers that produce code which can be freely downloaded and shared by the public? If you’re one of the many generous and smart programmers who wouldn’t mind sharing your work with others, the open source community would like to encourage you to continue on with your magnificent effort. Let us all keep open source alive for our next generation to continue utilizing.

An important aspect of releasing free software to the public is the copyright. If you’re trying to release your hard worked software to the public with the GNU General Public License, do you really understand the different types of FOSS license which you can apply to fully protect your codes, effort and idea?

The Software Freedom Law Center has recently release a legal guide entitled A Legal Issues Primer for Open Source and Free Software Projects.

On this comprehensive article, you will find out more about:

• Common Copyright Questions
• Common Organizational Issues
• Patent Defenses for FOSS Developers
• Common Trademark Issues

I would strongly recommend anyone out there who’s actively involved in Open Source Software to read and attempt to understand this legal guide. For the developers, you can understand the rights you hold for releasing software. For those who use Open Source Software, it’s good to understand the sort of license the software holds so that one does not violate any rules when utilizing the software. If someone thinks that he/she can easily add customization and resell an open source software, it’s good to think twice.

The Legal Issues Primer for Open Source and Free Software Projects is available in HTML, PDF and Postscript versions.

It’s copyright statement declares that it is copyrighted by the SFLC but that, “Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire document is permitted in any medium; however, this notice must be preserved on all copies.”

I’ve always been asked… what’s a good and free open source e-commerce software to implement?

Nowadays, more and more retailers are trying to build e-store to showcase their products online. Some are just happy to be able to display the varieties of products available for sale on their site while some go the distance to provide the ability for their customers to purchase from their online store.

So when it comes to starting off an online store, most retailers are not willing to spend much on developing a sophisticated online store. They just want the ability to easily upload images and prices of their store products. With this simple requirement in mind, the following are the top two php based open source online merchant software available for you to implement right away.

1. Magento

The first thing that I realized when I visited Magento’s site is it’s cool and neat design. Looking through the demo site, I’m amazed at the available features and how professional the store looks. Somehow it makes me want to buy stuffs from the page! In summary, these are some of Magento’s features:

• Wishlist
• Product Browsing
• Catalog Management
• Shap by Price and Category
• Order Management
• Payment Management
• Site Management
• Search Engine Optimization

The best feature with Magento is the search engine optimization capability where it displays the name of your product as part of the url. This helps your unique products rank higher within search engines.

2. OSCommerce

Did you know that OSCommerce has been around for quite a long time. Since they started, there are already about 177,000 store owners on OSCommerce. Some popular stores are TruffleShuffle and LinuxUk.

The best thing about OSCommerce is the vast availability of templates to download for free or purchase. You can get a professionally design template for less than $100 and have your store up in less than a week. The downside of OSCommerce is its lack of support for SEO. You may need some 3rd party component in order to have SEO optimized URLs. Other than that, it’s another fine open source online merchant software.

My two cents

To save you time on researching for which online merchant software to go for, simply start off with these two and evaluate which of these two software suites your store best. All the others out there are good too but I feel that currently both of these software are neck to neck in terms of capabilities and reliability. Best part, it’s free… you just need to spend time implementing it or simply hire someone to do it for you. Happy setting up your online store!

Open Workbench is an open source desktop application that provides robust project scheduling and management functionality. OpenWorkbench project-management software has a schedule view that lets you fine-tune key schedule elements, such as resource availability and start and finish dates. Already the scheduling standard for more than 100,000 project managers worldwide, Open Workbench is a free and powerful alternative to Microsoft Project.

Some important facts about Open Workbench:

• Open Workbench can be used and distributed free of charge throughout an enterprise.
• Open Workbench is a stand-alone desktop application that provides robust project scheduling functionality
• Open Workbench provides the unique ability to generate project schedules based on resource constraints
• Open source developers will find a ready-made community of business users interested in their enhancements and extensions. The source code and other developer information are available on SourceForge.

Screenshots: Continue Reading »
Free & Open Source Microsoft Project Alternative

You may have tried and used PhpSurveyor in the past to conduct surveys online.

They have now rebranded and is known as LimeSurvey. Visit their website here.

If you haven’t tried both sites, these are some reasons why you should and how you can utilize the free open source survey tool:

• Carry out assessments such as Change Readiness Assessments or Employee Satisfaction Assessment.
• Find out more about your site visitors.
• Easily host and conduct surveys on any networked machine.
• Save time and eliminate paper based surveys.