SUNDRE, ALBERTA, CANADA – Re-affirming its commitment to Linux
and the development of Linux based applications, Linux Canada Inc.
today announced its intent to make available source code for its
LinuxPOS and LinuxRETAIL applications. The source code will be
provided to those entities who wish to participate in an
international retail point-of-sale development project.
Linux Canada Inc. have been working with Linux since 1994. Their
SCO Unix based application, Retailer’s Choice, was converted to run
on Linux and the first Linux installation was in 1995. The feature
set, quality, and reliability of Linux make it an excellent O/S for
the mission critical retail environment.
Over the years retail organizations have been plagued with the
comings and goings of small software companies. The product
offerings have been extremely expensive as have been the support
and maintenance contracts. Source code has been extremely
over-protected as if it were a sacred treasure. Many software
companies have gone by the way-side leaving their retail customers
without support, service or source, forcing them to look for
alternatives.
POS Development Project
The main reason that no retail point of sale product has emerged
as the de-facto standard world wide is because of the vast
differences that exist in language, currency and taxes. Until now
it has been impossible for any one company to develop and keep up
with the ever changing retail environment. Consequently, retail
applications tend to be targeted to finite geographic areas and
specific retail verticals.
The POS Development Project unveiled by Linux Canada Inc. will
change all of that. Rather than the developers in Alberta, Canada
trying to build a product for the world, the source code will be
released to the world allowing the resources of the world to
develop what is needed. All development projects will be registered
with Linux Canada Inc. Developers will check in source code with
Linux Canada Inc. who will ensure quality and reliability. In
addition developers will provide a log of their hours spent on the
project. Linux Canada Inc. will provide, in return, a credit to the
developer which can be applied to the purchase of LinuxPOS and
LinuxRETAIL licenses.
This is believed to be a very unique commercial endeavor. The
model allows Linux Canada Inc. to maintain ownership rights to
their software while providing value-added resellers, dealers, and
retail chains the following:
- – stability that only Linux can provide
- – flexibility to add the features and functions that are
needed - – peace of mind of solid local support
- – features and functions added by other developers around the
world - – quality product at a low price
A detailed look at the scope, terms and conditions of the project
can be seen at http://www.linuxcanada.com.
LinuxPOS is a revolutionary point-of-sale application, bringing
tremendous functionality and a dynamic user interface to the retail
market place. LinuxPOS was written in Tcl/tk which has excellent
GUI capabilities, a strong feature set, and which comes complete
with source code. In a true client/server relationship, LinuxPOS
queries the server on a real-time basis. However LinuxPOS also
maintains a complete database of its own. Should the server happen
to fail, LinuxPOS continues running using its internal data and
will automatically synchronize with the server when it returns.
LinuxRETAIL is a new inventory control software package written
in Java. Java provides strong GUI capabilities through the Swing
API and also provides important features such as threading and
networking which are vital for a server product. This package is
still under construction and will be released for beta testing in
the May/June time frame.
Linux Canada Inc. is a privately owned corporation based in
Sundre, Alberta, Canada. Dedicated to Linux, the company is also a
Red Hat distributor, and is the Canadian distributor for Cyclades
port cards, routers and terminal servers.
Product names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or
registered trademarks of their respective companies.
For further information please contact:
Philip Tonnellier
President
Linux Canada Inc.
Phone: (250) 344-3085
Fax: (250) 344-3086
email: phil@linuxcanada.com
web: http://www.linuxcanada.com