Linux Canada: Quasar To Go Open Source
by Christine Hall Linux Canada, Inc. has announced that they plan to take Quasar, their popular cross-platform accounting program, open source, beginning with the release of their next version, 1.3. This should come as welcome news to the open source crowd, since a business accounting application of Quasar's scope is something that's been missing in the list of open source applications. The announcement came so quietly, on their user bulletin board on May 12, 2003, that many in the open source community missed it. In a response to a user question concerning the delays in getting version 1.3 released, Linux Canada representative Brad Pepers replied, "We have the 1.3 release out already in a number of stores and we have been fixing problems they found and this was one source of missing release dates. The main one though is that we had long discussions about going open source and have decided to do so. This has meant re-writing a large chunk of Quasar to remove dependencies on propriety software we were using and this code rewrite has taken 'way' longer than we thought."
It's unclear what effect the movement to open source will have on the pricing of the product. At present, the base application is available as a free download from the Linux Canada web site. Modules to add functionality are available for a fee, with prices for these modules running from $39.00 (US) for the multi-store module to $199.00 (US) for the point-of-sale module. Except for the point of sale module which runs only on Linux, Quasar operates on both Windows and Linux.
Linux Canada Inc. of Sundre, Alberta, was an early Linux developer, and released their first Linux application in 1995. Their web site lists Pepers and Phil Tonnellier as the company's principal contacts.
©Copyright
2003 by AlternativeApproaches.com
|
Printer Friendly Page