Contributions

One of the great things about programming is the ability to reuse code. This means that if some PHP guru decides he or she needs to extend the functionality provided by default with osCommerce, they can write the code that will perform the task they have in mind, and can then make that code available to everyone. Sounds almost too good to be true, but this is in fact true, and you can browse through the contributions section at http://www.oscommerce.com/ community/contributions/ to take a look for yourself.

This resource provides a categorized list of all the different contributions available to users like you and me. All the contributions listed on the site are provided freely under the GNU general public license (make sure you read and understand any additional license information provided with a contribution). It’s worth checking this out, and you can find a copy of the license at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html. Other than providing a categorized list of contributions, there are also two options to search through the latest and most downloaded packages.

It is important to realize that these contributions are often developed by individuals, and while they are an excellent resource, at times they can contain bugs. You will notice that many of the download pages have multiple versions of each package—each one fixing bugs or improving on the last version. Accordingly, you should always approach the use of contributions with caution, and at all times endeavor to understand exactly how the package is working to achieve its tasks.

Once we start adding some advanced functionality, we will come back to this topic and run through how to download, install, and modify community contributions.