PHP Programming Language - OpenLibra

osCommerce 164
In implementing an osCommerce-based site one key decision is how to integrate the design. Unlike its forks,
osCommerce MS2.2 does not come with a template system, though third party osCommerce templates are available.
This has been seen as a negative for some. However it does mean that designs can be hand-coded or a template
system installed. There are several well-known template systems, including STS, BTS and SMARTY.
Limitations
Since its release in 2003, a number of issues regarding its functionality have been identified by the user community
and recognized, in part, by the development team. For example:
1. UPS is no longer a standard shipping module but can be added.
2. The manual Credit Card payment is not PCI Compliant and should be used for testing only.
3. Downloadable products are not fully secure but can be secured via Add On.
4. Image thumbnails are in fact full size images reduced for display which impacts bandwidth.
5. The PSI Gate module is no longer operable and needs to be replaced with an XML version.
6. Stock is not applied to product options but there is an Add On that will allow this
Criticisms
There are some minor security vulnerabilities regarding possible SQL injection via unchecked PHP code. Patches are
available for affected programs.
Customization via Add On or Custom Code means that installation of additional Add Ons may require manual rather
than automated installation.
History
osCommerce was started in March 2000 in Germany by project founder and leader Harald Ponce de Leon as The
Exchange Project. While osCommerce is still officially in its development stage, the current Milestone 2.2 release
(Release Candidate 2a) is considered stable. As of August 2008 the osCommerce site says that there are over 14,000
'live' websites using the program. [1] This number is almost certainly conservative, given the inclusion of
osCommerce in hosting panel application installers such as Fantastico (web hosting) [2] and its dependency on
osCommerce users linking their sites into the osCommerce Live Stores listings.
The planned Milestone 3.0 is expected to be a major re-write of the program to incorporate an object-oriented
backend, a template system to allow easy layout changes, and inclusion of an administration-area username and
password definition during installation [3] . An early release candidate of osCommerce 3.0 (osCommerce Online
Merchant 3.0A4) has been available for download since Mar 31 2007, 03:11 AM [4]
On 29 October, 2008 it was announced by Harald Ponce de Leon (Project Leader) that the goal is to get v2.2
finalized and to release v3.0 Alpha 5 as soon as possible. [5]
On March 15, 2009 osCommerce made the first official release of osCommerce Online Merchant V 3.0 as a stable,
production ready alpha release. [6] . Introduced along with this release is a new "Social Coding on Github" initiative
introduced by osCommerce to liven up a previously slow development cycle.