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Open Source POS Project
Now that the premier issue of Embedded Linux Journal is out the door we are ready to get Linux community members involved in embedded projects. The magazine itself contains a design project and a contest. Here is another design project we are organizing.
This project is to create an open-source Point of Sale (POS) system. While we are just starting this effort, I envision that it will build a set of tools that can be assembled and customized to address a variety of POS requirements. If we do our job right, VARs will select these tools as the basis of their solutions, and some of us may even go on to be VARs ourselves. In any case, getting VARs to select a Linux-based solution is the goal.
What are the tools I am talking about? There is an amazing array here. On the geek end are drivers for barcode readers, touch screens, IR devices and such. On the business end there will need to be accounting software and reports. In each case we need to identify what is needed, design and build the tool and get it accepted by vendors outside the Linux community--be they hardware manufacturers or service providers such as credit card processors.
Many of these pieces already exist--our effort will be to get them working together and documented. Others will have to be written. Ultimately, we will have a complete tool kit with documentation that can be used to build precisely what the customer wants. This customization ability can be a big win over solutions based on closed-source software.
We have just started a mailing list to discuss the effort. If you want to join, send e-mail to majordomo@ssc.com and put the line subscribe opos-list in the body of the message.
This project was inspired by some questions on the Free Software Business mailing list run by Russ Nelson. I have many years of experience in embedded systems with a few years developing POS systems for the fueling and convenience store market. Dan Wilder, also on the SSC team has over 15 years of experience in POS systems. We want to bring our expertise to this Linux-based effort.
______________________
Phil Hughes
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Comments
POS software systems
I would recommend using http://www.visualretailplus.com for POS software systems.
OPEN SOURCE POS
FREETIME POS - OPINFOS PROGRAMS - LINUX - WINDOWS - OPEN SOURCE
Download open source FREETIME POS program: www.opinfos.com
- created with Lazarus.
Download open source OPINFOS program www.opinfos.com
- created with Kylix.
Download from Boris Valencic - Monarh
E-mail: info@monarh.tv
www.opinfos.com www.monarh.si www.adriagraf.eu
http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php?topic=10062.0
Java POS (Point of Sale) Software
We have a Java Point of Sale Software that is available for Free use for the unsupported version of the software. The software works with PC, off the shelf Scanners and Star thermal printer. Please find more details and download link at
www.modisco.com
pos opensource for clothing and footwear
hi
i am looking for pos software for clothing and footwear stores.we have 4 stores and central warehouse/distribution.
footwear adn clothing requires size and colour stokc items.can anyone assist
my email riadlaher@gmail.com
Good article
Do you know of any good open source inventory management software?
Food for thought
I'm a pos developer(previously employed by nike sa, platinum group etc) and am developing my own headoffice/branch system with customer accounts/appros/laybyes/revolving credit/etc etc.
The problem is if you spend this amount of time and effort in making something/and/or are worth your salt as a programmer, you want to be paid. Period. Nobody thats got a program like mine (Similar to SAP) would just give it away. Anyway thats why openbravo/php systems are usually projects concocted in the minds of some varsity coder bored but not ready knowing anything about the reatil industry, and not willing to put in the hours on the boring stuff like writing divice drivers to make their pos systems compatable with different hardware, or writing export formats to different accounting packages. So in all the important areas these types of packages (and many commercial packages) suck. Thats why my previous employers could charge R10 000 south african rands (divide by 7 for dollars) PER TILL/. Because there was nothing like it and at the end of the day when things go wrong you want someone with a brain on the other end of the line. Trust me, in the POS industry, free means shit.
Kind Regards
(name withheld)
Open source POS
www.openbravo.com/product/pos/
print a number to a receipt form a pos printer
I want to print a number to a receipt from a pos printer using php .Can any
body help me to get that thing done?
this shell script prints to a
this shell script prints to a DYMO/CoStar labelwriter loaded with thermal paper: ilovehatecomputers.blogspot.com/2010/06/cheap-pos-printer-2.html
you could use shell_exec() to run a shell command.
like this:
$do_this = 'echo \"' . $my_number . '\" | print_receipt_2.sh';
shell_exec($do_this);
functionality of POS
Love to hear from you guys about POS developments made. I would like to see the POS functional components that you guys identified. Like what are the key funcionalities of the system..
please email to coderiders.email@gmail.com
Thanks a lot.
training project
I HAVE TO SUBMIT A PROJECT IN MY COLLEGE IN DURATION OF 1 MONTH ON POS USED FOR BILLING IN RETAIL STORE I F ANY BDY CUD HELP ME
SONIA
POS project
You can ask questions, but I'm not going to do your homework for you.
start by building a "Product" table in your database. It's the best place to start, then get back to me.
pos system
hi
i am looking for open code pos system Or someone to write a very SIMPLE pos system.. for supermarket 3 cash register with backoffice
no inventory update...no ordering system....... one or two report on end of day registor taking
print reciept as required by the customer
overall SYSTEM - touchscreen monitor , bar scanner, printer , customer display, and keybrord.
ANY ONE WHO CAN HELP PLEASE EMAIL ME
orbitpc@gmail.com
A Java based open source POS
I would strongly recommend to try Floreant POS http://www.floreantpos.com
It may hurt web based application love but Web based application works better where application does not need to interact with hardware. Web pages has security restrictions, so cannot send data to small printer or kick cash drawer!
In addition to that Applications also utilize full resource of a system. It can even cache data for faster load, for example Restaurant Menus are almost same and gives added security.
There are so many vendors with different hardware in different platform that our recommendation is to use Java as platform. Floreant POS, developed in Java runs smoothly on any platform. In addition using hibernate made its code easier to customize.
MySQL is most popular but it has two limitation - recent version of mysql is heavy and it enforces ISVs to agree with Commercial License from Sun Microsystem. Floreant used Apache Derby that has less than 2M memory footprint and released under more flexible apache license.
Awesome POS
I have been developing POS for the restaurant.
It had taken me about six months. It should be nice and clean
in about six months. I'm plan on distributed it out for free.
I had to develop my own, because most POS is real confusing
or not intuitive enough.
Please email me if you're interested in evaluating it.
Compiler used: JAVA
Database: MySQL.
jkumpaar@hotmail.com
Regards,
John
We need a PHP/MySQL based POS system
We are looking for someone who can write or giv us a PHP/MySQL based POS System that we can use in one of our customer stores.
The idea is that we are developing an mini-erp system on php/mysql for this company that has about 3 retail stores, and it will beasy for us to integrate your source to us.
- Surendra
Take a look at
Take a look at frontaccounting, no pos just yet, but won't be long.
AM
We've been doing this for over 20 years
We have been doing Linux based POS systems for big retailers all over Southern Africa for 20 years now. Starting off with a 4th GL called CERES, created and developed in South Africa, so not only was the solution completely open source, but was proudly South African. A lot of our Furniture retailer still use the CERES based linux POS system. We have since started doing Java POS systems to keep updated with the GUI interfaces required by our clients. All our back office and frotnend servers run on Linux, and one client still running on Unix.
point of sales
hello,
i want to develope the point of sale softwares online in java
please help me how to start the project
kamlesh vyas
On sourceforge, you guys
On sourceforge, you guys will see that an ERP called Openbravo bought TinaPOS (i think it was LibrePOS) but now OpenbravoPOS.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/openbravopos/
Cheers,
Sanj
THE BEST RIGTH NOW USING PHP
THE BEST RIGTH NOW USING PHP AND MYSQL IS MERCHANTOS.COM
I have a POS, made with GTK+. I plan to GPL it.
Hi.
I made a POS system for my sister's coffee cart business. The primary goals were speed, ease of use, stability, and basic POS functionality. It also needed to be about cash register sized or smaller. It's designed for use with a touch screen. I coded it in C using the GTK+ toolkit (2.0) and do some complicated stuff in perl. The software is designed with modularity and flexibility in mind. It uses mysql as a database. It processes credit cards using perl to interact with yourpay.com. CC processing specifically is designed with modularity in mind, so yourpay.com could be replaced with something else fairly easily. Credit card numbers are captured using a swiper that plugs into a serial port. The cash drawer is also controlled via a serial interface. I'm using Star parallel printers which are great little machines and well supported under Linux. The touch screens work well. I developed it using Debian Sarge and run it under Gnome, but any window manager could work. I think it should be fairly easily portable to a variety of devices. It's been used in a production environment for 6+ months. The reporting needs some help, but I just haven't had the time needed.
I'm currently working on increasing modularity (with a goal of separating the POS logic from the GTK+ front-end) and improving the credit card processing module, including making cc transactions run asynchronously so the GUI remains responsive. I plan to soon start working on making the menu more easily editable. (right now you need some xml editing skillz to change an item/option price.) Other future plans include adding customer tracking and affinity-card (gift card) support.
so far: it's very stable, the baristas like it, the reporting (via apache/cgi/mysql/perl) gives enough information for day to day simple things and to make doing taxes possible... It's possible to run several transactions at once... can accept multiple forms of payment for each transaction... .... it does all kinds of cool stuff. I'm proud of it. I think it should already be possible to run more than one POS off the same database... and without much more work (adding some record/database locking) it will be possible to work on the same transaction at any connected terminal without having to worry about losing or corrupting data.
I made it because I had the time, thought it was an interesting project and had a customer. Now, it would be nice to make some money from it. Maybe you'd like to hire me to do something? I'm a very good programmer, with plenty of C/C++/perl experience. :)
The coffee business is located in Reno. It's called Hi Point Coffee. I'll most likely be publishing the POS software on sourceforge under the name HiPointPOS, or something like that.
POS system
anna-
trolling about the internet re: POS systems, came across your post.
we're a 9 store group of cafes in milwaukee that runs micros. as we have been seeking some higher-level functionality, micros delivered a proposal for their web-based reporting, gift/loyalty program and unified employee database. with this many stores and that many micros products, the annual costs begin to support a development effort.
a high-level list of desirables:
•23 registers across 9 stores
•thin client touchscreens as "register unit"
•all touchscreens connected to central office server (via fast internet conencitons)where transactions take place
•basic POS function
•multiple printers, printing subsets of orders (drinks go to espresso machine, food goes to pantry)
•PCI compliant credit card processing
•open source
•central employee files
•time/attendance at all terminals
•card-swipe identifiers for staff
•gift cards
•loyalty on same card as gift
•cached CC transactions when disconnected from internet (continue to ring sales)
•cache all other data as well, resync when connected
•centralized management of touch screens, menus, pricing, etc.
•scheduled (example: 5 am next saturday) pricing changes, menu additions/deletions
•data exporting, reporting, etc.
•bonus feature: connect to macintosh running itunes music- control track selection and volume
•bonus feature #2: we have a scheduling program written in excel. translate into version accessible over terminals
what's your perspective?
not likely
I'm a pos developer(previously employed by nike sa, platinum group etc) and am developing my own headoffice/branch system with customer accounts/appros/laybyes/ revolving credit/etc etc.
The problem is if you spend this amount of time and effort in making something/and/or are worth your salt as a programmer, you want to be paid. Period. Nobody thats got a program like mine (Similar to SAP) would just give it away. Anyway thats why openbravo/php systems are usually projects concocted in the minds of varsity coder bored but not ready knowing anything about the reatil industry, and not willing to put in the hours on the boring stuff like writing divice drivers to make their pos systems compatable with different hardware, or writing export formats to different accounting packages. So in all the important areas these types of packages (and many commercial packages) suck. Thats why my previous employers could charge R10 000 south african rands (divide by 7 for dollars) PER TILL/. Because there was nothing like it and at the end of the day when things go wrong you want someone with a brain on the other end of the line.
Kind Regards
(name withheld)
OS Compatibility
Does this only work on the Linux platform or does it run in Windows as well?
POS software
We are developing a pos software in java for retail business. we are interested to in your restaurant project. hope we can have mutually benefecial business relationship.
FreePOS Moving To Linux Client Soon
FreePOS, the internet's leading freeware restaurant POS system, is taking a major step by implementing a Linux based client. The goal is to eliminate licensing fees associated with Windows and to reduce the hardware requirements of workstations.
If you would like to learn more about the development status, please check our website at www.Positive-Feedback.net - You can even register as a Beta tester there and receive trial versions of the prototype(s).
Development Help Needed for Revolutionary POS concept
Please contact me if you are interested in helping develop a prototype of a revolutionary restaurant POS system. We are located in the NYC area. Serious inquiries only. This is being posted on Jan 6, 2007. This invitation is open to anyone interested who is reading this.
spyknot@gmail.com
pos development
I would love to get involved with the development of a pos for restaurants. Please get with me asap.
Scott Smith
225-288-8100
Restaurant POS Project
This is an interesting topic; is there any progress? We are restaurant developers with a serious need for a quick serve solution, benchmarked by Aloha quick service product and delivery/carry out module. We have developed such a solutions years ago; SCO Unix, Cbase, C programming, and various unix scripts. This fully documented system is installed and working in 300+ QSR operations today. However, as all you reading this know, this system; utilizing today tools and platforms can truly be something. We are in the restaurant business, not the development business; a deal can be made here for us to contribute our working knowlege, source code, documentation with an eye towards building a fully functioning, Open souce POS sytem for the QSR market. Any thoughts, shoot me a note. Best, Earl
web and station combination
i am trying to male an online solution but i have to use of service to convert to fax it would be nice to have an nternal solution for that
Re: Restaurant POS Project
We are a start-up company currently developing restaurant systems utilizing a mix of proprietary and open technologies. We have a unique business model that we believe provides a compelling proposition to the market. I would be very interested to discuss requirements and experience with you, including potential deals.
Development help available
I work for a company that provides POS solutions to the resteraunt industry. I am looking to input my experience in this field and help to develop a open source system that can provide a variety of POS solutions to many industries. Reguardless of what language it is written in, i will learn it. Open source softeware will allow POS providers to offer a much better product with release from the licensing overhead currently associated with it. Reguardless of the launguate the frontend i written in I believe MySQL to be the obvious choice in the database server choice. I wish to see the open source POS solution become a tight nit group with secure trusted software that is able to provide the features and capabilities that the large companies provide before they do with support for more hardware and options than is currently available. Sorry for any typos but its late saturday night and i'm at a party (of course on the computer available) I assure you my intent in genuine and my effort endless. Please contact me with any further details available.
Sincerely,
Chris Janzow
Development Help Needed
Chris,
How do we contact you?
POS and osCommerce
Does anyone out there, use osCommerce for your webstore? Do you want it connected to your live store? We at R&T Computers are in the process of disigning a POS to do just that. Stop by our webstore at http://rtcomp.no-ip.com email the web master at rtcomp_wm@sbcglobal.net or best of all stop into our live store at 4385 Dixie Hwy Saginaw, MI 48601
SynPOS
Checkout SynPOS at http://www.postosc.com. It synchronizes with web stores including osCommerce in real time.
Re: Open Source POS Project
A few years ago I started work on one such project using the Mozilla Framework. I still believe this is the way to go, though Java might be decent as well. The reason I think Mozilla is a better fit is because of Internalization.. it's built in, plus you get a rich framework that's cross platform for free. I built a proof of concept interface a looong loooong time ago, but no one seemed to give a damn, so I stopped. IF anyone is interested, signup for the mailing list and drop me a line/post on the bulleting board. The project is MozPos at:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mozpos
It installs under Mozilla 1.7 and seems to run fine (though it was developed under 1.1).
Mozilla POS
Greetings. Please tell us how you developed the project. I am very intersting in using it.
In fact, I need it urgently for a project. However I didn't find any documentation. Also i'd like to know about the framework you used as well as the source code. Thanks.
Re: Open Source POS Project
I meant to say Internationalization... I'm too sleepy..
Re: Open Source POS Project
I have owned 2 restaurants and am also a Software Engineer and am constantly surprised at the crop of software that is made available that calls it self POS software. Most of it is awful.
I am well versed in Java, J2EE, web design (html, javascript, dhtml, etc...), Relational and non-relational database systems (Oracle, DB2, Lotus), and would be very interested in working with a group trying to create an open source POS system or discussing a good open source project that is already in the works.
I also have most of the standard POS hardware needed for testing (cash drawers, receipt printer, label printer, credit card printer, credit card readers, touch screen monitors)
Please add me to your mailing list, or, if this is an inactive thread, those interested, please contact me and possibly we can discuss other POS systems and potentially start a real open source POS framework on sourceforge (I know there are many, but most don't have much support, 2-4 developers, and I haven't been able to try most, as their code is still locked up in alpha).
email me at: scprotz@hotmail.com
(Please put POS in your subject line so i can quickly weed it out from all the junkmail i get at hotmail)
Re: Open Source POS Project
Hey guys
I am on the functional side and know quite a bit about what the functionalities are for a POS system.
I would also like to know if there is any generic framework available for POS?
Re: Open Source POS Project
Any news on this project ?
Tim
Re: Open Source POS Project
Hello All,
I am current build a Java based pos system for a dine-in/carryout/delivery resturant franchise. Have been developing system for a year now. I am interested in additional involvement in you open source project..my project is currently not open source...but future development my move in that direction.... please contact me at maddera@peakpeak.com....looking forward to hearing from you...
Re: Open Source POS Project
I am taking this opportunity to offer my services for an open source development of Java point of sale system.
Although I am good at Java and well versed in J2EE, however
I am new to Point of Sale systems and am trying to make one as a hobby. May I ask you
if there is some example code / tutorial available which uses java pos API. Similarly are you aware if some organization has made some standardized dtd or schema for this purpose.
Is there some opportunity to collaborate with some one on this type of project please. I have been to http://www.javapos.com but could not find any thing. May I also subscribe to the mailing list for opos please.
Your's Sincerely.
Ahmad
E Mail: knowledg_power@hotmail.com
Tel: 816 - 668 - 8386
Re: Open Source POS Project in Java
Looks like, it did not add my contact information in the a/m post.
Here it is:
Ahmad
E Mail: knowledg_power@hotmail.com
Phone: 816 - 668 - 8386
Re: Open Source POS Project
I have a whole system ready with linux backend running php/mysql/apache and any client with web browser as front end. Works great BUT the hard part now is to find a POS printer that will work with linux, have been doing a lot of research, with no luck. So far, the project cost me 600 + printer cost. If this is successful, definitely would be cheaper than those windows pos systems.
-Frank N.
open source pos
I work/manage a ski shop and i am looking for a retail POS to replace what I am running now. I would like more info on your project.
Charlie
Re: Open Source POS Project
Star Micronics POS Printer
Re: Open Source POS Project
i can give you a easy solution;
take a windows machine, install apache, php and mysql
upload your files and there you've got a system wich can print easily.
Like to participate, mail me ritz at skynet.be
Re: Open Source POS Project
I have been a system engineer for various POS VAR's since 1986. I'm very interested in your work, please email me at dsouthard@cowansretail.com. Hopefully, you still monitor this thread. Thanks for any responses,
Dale Southard