The company (AandB Pots and Pans Ltd) wants a report that explores issues and makes justified recommendations using appropriate supporting references. This is not related to the scripts to be written but to such areas as: - the advantages and disadvantages of using proprietary or Open Source software; - the conditions and terms of Open Source software licences versus proprietary software licences; - how a small team of three novice programmers can work together and with a larger community to implement a solution. The company will want to use some of its current staff to implement the application: three novice programmers with very little programming experience. A major problem for them is that they have never worked on a large project requiring a team effort; they are much more used to working in isolation. The company wants to see a clear selection of the best choice for its website. All the factors that need to be considered in making such a choice need to be laid out for the company, together with their level of importance. The proposed solution and another rejected option then need to be explained in terms of the factors used to select the solution.
¶ … Community Involvement Analysis
This project involves the development of an e-commerce portal (online shop) for a & B. Pots and Pans Ltd., a company that specializes in the sale of modern and prestige cookware. The choice of shopping cart solution is a secure and yet open source shopping cart solution known as PrestaShop. PrestaShop is a free and open source e-commerce solution. Its ability to be integrated seamlessly with several payment gateways and processors like Google Checkout, Paypal, Authorize.net, Skrill as well as Payment Pro-by means of an API makes it an ideal software solution for many.
The software is available to users under the Open Source License and was launched successfully in 2007 for use by small and medium scale businesses. PrestaShop is based in the popular Smarty template engine is currently in use in over 100,000 online shops worldwide (Taylor,2011). PrestaShop was nominated and won the Best Open Source E-Commerce Application in the 2010 Packt Open Source Awards (Packt,2012) as well as the Best Open source Application in the 2011 edition of the Open Source Award.
The PrestaShop group was originally base din Paris where it was founded but recently it has opened an office in Miami. The software has over 40 languages with French and English being the only languages that enjoy the full support in all of the version releases. The software's technical support is only available on the company's official forum (PrestaShop,2012a).
PrestaShop extensively uses AJAX in its admin panel with the possibility of easy addition of module block in order to provide extra functionality to the store. These modules are often provide free of charge by the store's independent developers.
Community involvement analysis
The PrestaShop development team uses several methods in promoting as well as developing interest as well as community involvement from various participants. These methods includes free technical support and elaborate documentation from the general community of developers as well as the by updating its licenses on distribution of code to favor coders/developers.
Technical support
The fact that the development process of any software requires considerable levels and knowledge of debugging means that there has to be a corresponding level of technical expertise and technical support to deal with these. These elements of technical support are often expensive to get since it costs thousands and even millions of dollars to hire experts in the field of computer science / software development to handle any given situation. This is however not the case with open source software like PrestaShop. The fact that it is open source means that very developer who is part of the development community is automatically qualified to offer their views on any technical difficulty at totally no fee. The zero fee in gaining technical support means that applications can rapidly be developed, tested and deployed within the shortest time possible and at absolutely no fee. The high level of technical expertise which is derived from the development community is priceless. This method has been effective in having several coders and application writers to join the PrestaShop development bandwagon. The ease of installation as well as the readily available technical support has acted as a motivation for continued user support and environment within the PrestaShop development environment/community. It is therefore crucial for the PrestaShop development community to encourage continued participation in their forum since this is their basis of attracting and maintaining the invaluable assets of technical assistance base.The Prestashop forum is dedicated to the PrestaShop community as well as e-commerce enthusiasts who are on the look out for ways of sharing, providing suggestions, leaving comments, asking questions, exchanging ideas as well as contributing to the Prestashop development community. This method helps in the faster development of PrestaShop software, libraries as well as other forms of derivative work or modules.
The elaborate documentation system used by the software development team is invaluable to the users, developers and software reviewers alike. The documentation system is noted as one of the factors that has helped the company to develop a steady and rapid user and programmer base. With documentation, using and possibly debugging the system becomes quite easy.
Updating its licenses on distribution of code to favor coders/developers
The company announced sometime in 2011 (Dumez,2011) that they wanted to make the creation as well as distribution of the PrestaShop extensions as well as themes clearer and easier to their community. They did this by updating their licenses on distribution effectively. As of the date when the license was updated, the PrestaShop standard theme as well as modules have been published under the AFL 3.0 license while the entire PrestaShop program with only the exception of certain elements and 3rd party libraries have remained under the usual OSL 3. License without being affected by any changes.
According to these changes in licenses, any derivative work that is created by the application of Prestashop's default modules as well as themes will no longer be compulsory/mandatory to be made public. This condition also applies to the source code. It is worth noting that the AFL 3.0 license is very similar to the OSL 3.0 license with the only exception being that it never requires that the source code of the derivative work be made public as indicated by AFL3 .0-1c. Any changes or development that are made to any PrestaShop file published under the OSL 3.0 license are also to be made public under these changes.
Any changes that are made to various files that are copyrighted as well as distributed under the OSL 3.0 license are noted by Dunez (2011) to be considered as forms of derivative work.It is also important to note that any business or developer have a choice of making their derivative work's source code accessible or not so as to preserve their trade activity as they wish.
The implication of these changes is that the developers/contributors to the PrestaShop development team will have a choice of how to distribute their source code. This freedom helps in the rapid development of derivate works/modules in the software.
Project fitness analysis
In this section, we compare as well as contrast Prestashop open source software against the proprietary shopping cart Volusion. This analysis is done by commenting on the appropriate range of relevant factors in the selection of a software solution.
PrestaShop
Volution
Security
Secured with SSL encryption and is equipped with a security module having an anti-fraud analysis system.
Also secured with SSL encryption and is equipped with a security module having an anti-fraud analysis system.
Hosting
The user provides hosting space/facilities
The user provides hosting space/facilities
Web Design
Has several features for setting up a functional website with features
Also has several features for setting up a functional website with features
Maximum number of products
Unlimited but 250,000+ products significantly compromises software and server performance (PrestaShop,2010)
Unlimited
Hard goods (Tangible products)
Soft Goods (downloadable)
Built-in POS system
Available but not inbuilt (can be bought as an separate module)
Real-time Credit card Processing
SSL-Secure Socket Layer encryption
Automatic tax and shipping calculation
Fraud Protection tools
Affiliate Programs
Available though its Post Affiliate Pro-module/Addon
Coupons
Social Media Connectivity
Product Comparison module
Daily Deals module
No daily deal module
Abandoned Cart e-mail
Loyalty Program
No loyalty program module
Telephone Support
Technical Support is found sites official forum
E-mail support module
Knowledgebase
FAQ section
Tutorials
24/7 Live Support
User Guide
The factors that are significant for a & B. Pots and Pans Ltd. are;
Security
This is because the high level of security would allow the company to suffer less losses due to fraud cases. The use of a fraud-detection technology would also reassure the clients to transact over their e-commerce website
The 24/7 Live Support
Good customer service is an important element of a successful e-commerce website. This is because it has been shown that customer service functionality is an integral element to be considered when designing an e-commerce website (Akhter & Bashir,2008).
Social Media Connectivity
Social media is an important tool for driving up sales. A & B. Pots and Pans Ltd. can use this tool to promote as well as advertise its products online.
The less important features are;
Soft Goods (downloadable) module
This is because the company deals with physical products only.
Maximum number of products
This is because the company deals with products that are less than 250,000 in regard to type
Hosting
The company would easily host its website in multiple locations due to the affordability of web hosting solutions.
License analysis
The PrestaShop runs on a license based on OSL 3.0 (Rosen,2007). The OSL 3.) is noted by Rosen (2007) as a reciprocal (or rather copyleft) license. This is because it effectively imposes a reciprocal form of source code disclosure obligation which is somehow similar but in actual sense narrower that the one of GPL.
This is because under the OSL 3.0 license, the derivative works of an OSL 3.0 licensed original work must be licensed under the OSL 3.0 themselves. The source code is the Derivative Works must therefore be disclosed.
Sublicensing may only occur under similar terms of the original license. Its retaliatory clauses are similar to those used in AFL license. The reciprocity concept is clearly stated in section § 1(c) that effectively authorizes software distribution. The part which effectively states that "with the proviso that copies of Original Work or Derivative Works that You distribute or communicate shall be licensed under this Open Software License" (PrestaShop,2012). This statement of reciprocity a well as the definitions of Derivative Works in section § 1(b) is noted by Rosen (2007) to have serious consequences on the use as well as re-distribution of PrestaShop as an OSL-based derivative work.
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