Open Source shopping carts have been around for the last decade. A "shopping cart" is typically a program that makes it easy for you to create an online store with pictures of your products, and accept credit card payments that are automatically deposited into your bank account. "Open Source" means these programs are free to use and free to modify. The free price tag makes them very popular, and has spurred the creation of thousands of modifications. These modifications are typically donated back to the community of the original program for free use by anyone else using that cart, creating a vast pool of available resources.
Future of the osCommerce Industry
At the time osCommerce was founded, some developers believed that it was possible for open source to take over the world by replacing proprietary software, or software that is privately developed by a single company. The history of open source development is rife with demonstrations of the challenges of creating uniform coding standards to which dozens, hundreds, and thousands of developers will adhere.
Today, of course, we can see that both types of programs can happily co-exist, even within the same organization and as versions of the same program. Ideas will flourish in open source projects, remaining free to use and modify and attracting new technical users. Later on, feature-rich, "for-fee" versions or hosted versions may actually be a better bargain for non-technical online store owners.
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