From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Jan 25 11: 6:47 2003 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A7BD737B401 for ; Sat, 25 Jan 2003 11:06:45 -0800 (PST) Received: from hope.caffeinated-systems.com (hope.caffeinated-systems.com [209.98.143.7]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 304DF43E4A for ; Sat, 25 Jan 2003 11:06:44 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jon@caffeinated-systems.com) Received: by hope.caffeinated-systems.com (Postfix, from userid 1003) id 754794D289; Sat, 25 Jan 2003 12:46:23 -0600 (CST) Date: Sat, 25 Jan 2003 12:46:23 -0600 From: Jon Passki To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Point of Sale (POS) and FreeBSD Message-ID: <20030125184623.GF52156@hope.caffeinated-systems.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.4i Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Hello All, I'm preparing to commit myself to a start-up business, and one area I am currently researching is the Point of Sale (POS) systems. While going into the business model isn't quite necessary at the moment (maybe later), I've noticed a small market that includes FreeBSD in POS applications/devices. Some of these are of commercial interests, while others are open source projects under various licensing terms. I am soliciting feedback on my basic design, and wish to start a dialog on how others have used/not used FreeBSD in POS environments. Some POS Systems: --) L'ane is a POS system that seems to not care too much on the underlying O/S [1]. --) ViewTouch seems to be a commercial POS provider/reseller [2]. --) BananaHead POS, while linux-based, seems nifty [6] As I understand it (in practice and through research), is the POS environment can somewhat be split in two areas: terminals and back office/business logic. Support on the terminals seems a conglomerate of glue and patience. E.g. receipt printers have support through direct codes (L'ane does this through perl) or through CUPS [3], as in the case of the Star TSP{600-800} line of thermal printers [4]. Also, some touch screens are supported by XFree86 modules. Smartcards have some support through MUSCLE [5]. And the rest seems doable ;-) The back-office stuff really depends on the business model, but again, there's stuff out there. L'ane and others have their own operational packages. Then going into the financial/administrative portion, there's projects like SQL-Ledger for accounting/GL stuff [7]. In designing my own POS, I'm wishing to avoid pitfalls that others have encountered. I have no information up yet on this, but when I do (seasoned procrastinator :-), I want to offer all I can back to the FreeBSD community. So.... What else have you all seen? What are the issues? Is this something that if available as a port(s), what would you like to see? Are there vendors that have been receptive/black holes about open source support? Thanks for your time on this! Jon Passki p.s. I probably won't stay subscribed to -chat for too long, so please include me directly on any follow-up. [1] http://l-ane.sourceforge.net [2] http://www.viewtouch.com [3] http://www.cups.org [4] http://www.starmicronics.com [5] http://www.linuxnet.com [6] http://www.bananahead.com/pos/index.html [7] http://www.sql-ledger.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message