I am pleased to announce the results of a significant effort with respect
to our client code, as well as the formal launch of an important new program.
*New client code - significant re-architecture
First of all, we have invested significant effort into modifying the
architecture of our client code to be easier to install, use, upgrade and
customize. You have told us these sorts of changes are important to you,
and we have done our best to develop an extensible structure that will
provide the right balance of power, customization, and "upgrade-ability".
If you have never upgraded your client code, you will want to consider
making the one-time effort to migrate to this version, as future upgrades
will be significantly easier to perform. This is accomplished by
abstracting the code into simple CGIs for various purposes and having
related Perl Modules to support various actions. The idea behind this
structure is to allow you to make additions to the system without having to
touch the code base. We provide a "hooks" mechanism where you can write
your own routines to complement or bypass the routines that exist in the
native code. In doing this, you should never have to modify the code base
directly (unless it is a material change). Changes should be as simple as
overwriting any relevant Perl Modules or CGIs with new ones.
Additionally we have provided some generic modules that provide an
interface to a couple of payment processing methods, an interface to
Net::SSL, etc. And there are methods for passing custom fields around the
order process, with error checking capabilities, etc...
The config files have changed dramatically in form and are now in "Apache
style" format. The error-checking can be done by editing a "Rules" file
that allows for nested and dependent rules to exist.
Finally, we have made the install process cleaner and easier to perform.
*Commitment to Open Source Development
At this time, we are also making a stronger commitment to Open Source
development of our client code. We have always strongly believed in Open
Source development principles, and we are excited about evolving our
commitment to support these efforts.
We have setup a Sourceforge repository for a distinct version of the client
code. We will provide dedicated development and support resources for this
project to assist developers who wish to submit bug fixes, enhancements, or
new functionality. All submissions will be evaluated, and be included in
either the Sourceforge repository, or our official release version. We will
also be able to better respond to requests for API modification, or
clarification.
It is important to understand that we will ultimately have two similar
versions of our client code:
Official release - this will NOT include all submissions, specifically
modifications and or functionality that explicitly requires or supports a
"non-Tucows sponsored" third party functionality, or functionality that is
not deemed to have a wide general appeal to the OSRS community - we will
offer formal support for this release.
Sourceforge release - this will include all submissions that meet our basic
standards for documentation, and security considerations - many components
of this release will not be officially supported, but peer support is
always available.
It will be possible to easily add selected components of the Sourceforge
release to the official release in order to get specific desired
functionality. The two releases will be very similar, although the
Sourceforge release will likely include many more modules and extended
functionality.
Our plan is to release the newly client code as a beta for one month.
During this time we encourage resellers to install the code and report any
bugs and/or submit improvements for release consideration. We are confident
that this release is worthy for production environments, but we are
releasing it now as an unsupported beta version. We anticipate that the
official release (available in a month) will not be radically different
from what we offer today, and (as a result of the new architecture) the
upgrade will be relatively painless.
The new client code and project resources can be found at:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/opensrs-sf/
Enhancements, bug reports, and questions should be directed to
[EMAIL PROTECTED] .
Regards,
sA
Scott Allan
Director OpenSRS
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
