Rails - Feb 2006 - Open source rails e-commerce engine?

I''m pinging the list to see if anyone is working on an open-source
e-commerce engine based on Rails yet - something like OSCommerice I guess.
Anyone? Is there interest out there for such a thing?

I have such a product which has been extracted from real world code. It
currently runs 3 production rails sites in various shapes and forms,
implemented as a rails engine.

Basic feature list:
- A very basic CMS & blog
- Product & order management
- Online store
-- Integration with Authorize.net & FedEx shipping (for rate calculation)
- Q&A / contact & FAQ management
- A fairly nice admin UI -
http://vault.subimage.com/substruct/admin_order.png

This product has been created from contracts I''ve had over the last 6-8
months. I''ve never managed an open source project before, and wondering
how
big of a time commitment it might be.

I''m a freelancer who runs a two-man web shop...so I''m looking
to enhance the
product with a little bit of help if possible and perhaps bring in some more
business selling commercial support & customizations.

Any feedback or comments on taking on such a challenge would be welcome.

--
seth at subimage interactive
http://www.subimage.com/sublog/
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Anyone home?

On 2/18/06, subimage interactive <subimage@gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> I''m pinging the list to see if anyone is working on an open-source
> e-commerce engine based on Rails yet - something like OSCommerice I guess.
> Anyone? Is there interest out there for such a thing?
>
> I have such a product which has been extracted from real world code. It
> currently runs 3 production rails sites in various shapes and forms,
> implemented as a rails engine.
>
> Basic feature list:
> - A very basic CMS & blog
> - Product & order management
> - Online store
> -- Integration with Authorize.net & FedEx shipping (for rate
calculation)
> - Q&A / contact & FAQ management
> - A fairly nice admin UI -
> http://vault.subimage.com/substruct/admin_order.png
>
> This product has been created from contracts I''ve had over the
last 6-8
> months. I''ve never managed an open source project before, and
wondering how
> big of a time commitment it might be.
>
> I''m a freelancer who runs a two-man web shop...so I''m
looking to enhance
> the product with a little bit of help if possible and perhaps bring in some
> more business selling commercial support & customizations.
>
> Any feedback or comments on taking on such a challenge would be welcome.
>
> --
> seth at subimage interactive
> http://www.subimage.com/sublog/
>


--
seth at subimage interactive
http://www.subimage.com/sublog/
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Hi Seth,

I really don''t have too much to add, but here''s a couple of
thoughts.

I think a well designed rails engine or plugin would likely get a lot  
of use, certainly a lot of apps that people code are oriented towards  
ecommerce.

That said, I can remember looking at OSCommerce a couple of years  
back. Initially I thought that I would likely want to use it to set  
up my own ecommerce site. But the more I looked into the more I read  
about people not really being able to configure it to suit there  
needs, and that it many cases that this was more work than writing  
their own app. Eventually I shied away... Clearly any rails app or  
engine along this lines would need to steer clear of that kind of  
problem.

I am too new to rails to have any insight about how to go about  
creating an engine or plugin that will both add functionality that  
otherwise would take a long to code while also being flexible enough  
that it doesn''t lock developers into an overly specific paradigm of  
an ecommerce site. I can spot an OSCommerce site on the first page  
load. I think that''s bad.

Take care,
Sean

On 19-Feb-06, at 8:11 PM, subimage interactive wrote:
> Anyone home?
>
> On 2/18/06, subimage interactive <subimage@gmail.com> wrote:
I''m
> pinging the list to see if anyone is working on an open-source e- 
> commerce engine based on Rails yet - something like OSCommerice I  
> guess. Anyone? Is there interest out there for such a thing?
>
> I have such a product which has been extracted from real world  
> code. It currently runs 3 production rails sites in various shapes  
> and forms, implemented as a rails engine.
>
> Basic feature list:
> - A very basic CMS & blog
> - Product & order management
> - Online store
> -- Integration with Authorize.net & FedEx shipping (for rate  
> calculation) 
> - Q&A / contact & FAQ management
> - A fairly nice admin UI - http://vault.subimage.com/substruct/ 
> admin_order.png
>
> This product has been created from contracts I''ve had over the
last
> 6-8 months. I''ve never managed an open source project before, and
> wondering how big of a time commitment it might be.
>
> I''m a freelancer who runs a two-man web shop...so I''m
looking to
> enhance the product with a little bit of help if possible and  
> perhaps bring in some more business selling commercial support &  
> customizations.
>
> Any feedback or comments on taking on such a challenge would be  
> welcome.
>
> -- 
> seth at subimage interactive
> http://www.subimage.com/sublog/
>
>
>
> -- 
> seth at subimage interactive
> http://www.subimage.com/sublog/
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails

subimage interactive wrote:
> Anyone home?
Yeah, but they''re too busy bashing Java and giggling about textmate.
;-)

Seriously though, I''ve found that this list is heavily tilted towards
newbies (myself
included), and you''re probably not gonna get many takers from that
camp. Well, I''d imagine
there will be lots of people who will be interested in your project once
it''s available,
but they''re not gonna have much to say now. I''ve also found
that the things that get
responses on here vary dramatically... and more things *don''t* get a
response than do.

But anyway, what I''d do if I were you is go ahead and get a ruby-forge
account, make a
little home page for your project and send out an ANN email about it. And if
it''s
releasable (sounds like it is), go ahead and release it. I think people tend to
contribute
to or comment on open source code when they actually get around to using it.

I was looking at the open source projects page on the rails wiki the other day
and I think
the only e-commerce project on there (http://trac.vaillant.ca/store.rb/wiki)
hasn''t
released anything. So, your project will be the first into the niche... and you
could
probably sell consulting/support for it too.

I wouldn''t worry about the time involved... lot''s of stalled
projects out there and you
have more to gain by keeping it up. To cop a stupid advertising slogan, just do
it.

b


> On 2/18/06, *subimage interactive* <subimage@gmail.com 
> <mailto:subimage@gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>     I''m pinging the list to see if anyone is working on an
open-source
>     e-commerce engine based on Rails yet - something like OSCommerice I
>     guess. Anyone? Is there interest out there for such a thing?
> 
>     I have such a product which has been extracted from real world code.
>     It currently runs 3 production rails sites in various shapes and
>     forms, implemented as a rails engine.
> 
>     Basic feature list:
>     - A very basic CMS & blog
>     - Product & order management
>     - Online store
>     -- Integration with Authorize.net <http://Authorize.net> &
FedEx
>     shipping (for rate calculation)
>     - Q&A / contact & FAQ management
>     - A fairly nice admin UI -
>     http://vault.subimage.com/substruct/admin_order.png
>     <http://vault.subimage.com/substruct/admin_order.png>
> 
>     This product has been created from contracts I''ve had over the
last
>     6-8 months. I''ve never managed an open source project before,
and
>     wondering how big of a time commitment it might be.
> 
>     I''m a freelancer who runs a two-man web shop...so I''m
looking to
>     enhance the product with a little bit of help if possible and
>     perhaps bring in some more business selling commercial support &
>     customizations.
> 
>     Any feedback or comments on taking on such a challenge would be
welcome.
> 
>     -- 
>     seth at subimage interactive
>     http://www.subimage.com/sublog/
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> seth at subimage interactive
> http://www.subimage.com/sublog/
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails

I''m game. I would like to see what you have done. I think you would  
do well to open source it. If you use svn and someone commits a  
change you dont like you can always roll back ;) I don''t think it  
would be that much extra work for you to manage the open source  
project for it either. Especially not compared to what you can gain  
from others contributions.

	I would help out with some code and such to create a nice ecommerce  
product for rails. I imagine you will get a lot more feedback if you  
release it then just talking about it too ;-)

	So I encourage you to go for it. You don''t have much to lose by  
doing it and you stand to gain a lot more eyes on it and more code  
written for it then your two man team could do easily.

Cheers-
-Ezra


On Feb 19, 2006, at 5:11 PM, subimage interactive wrote:
> Anyone home?
>
> On 2/18/06, subimage interactive <subimage@gmail.com> wrote:
> I''m pinging the list to see if anyone is working on an open-source
> e-commerce engine based on Rails yet - something like OSCommerice I  
> guess. Anyone? Is there interest out there for such a thing?
>
> I have such a product which has been extracted from real world  
> code. It currently runs 3 production rails sites in various shapes  
> and forms, implemented as a rails engine.
>
> Basic feature list:
> - A very basic CMS & blog
> - Product & order management
> - Online store
> -- Integration with Authorize.net & FedEx shipping (for rate  
> calculation) 
> - Q&A / contact & FAQ management
> - A fairly nice admin UI - http://vault.subimage.com/substruct/ 
> admin_order.png
>
> This product has been created from contracts I''ve had over the
last
> 6-8 months. I''ve never managed an open source project before, and
> wondering how big of a time commitment it might be.
>
> I''m a freelancer who runs a two-man web shop...so I''m
looking to
> enhance the product with a little bit of help if possible and  
> perhaps bring in some more business selling commercial support &  
> customizations.
>
> Any feedback or comments on taking on such a challenge would be  
> welcome.
>
> -- 
> seth at subimage interactive
> http://www.subimage.com/sublog/
>
>
>
> -- 
> seth at subimage interactive
> http://www.subimage.com/sublog/
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
-Ezra Zygmuntowicz
WebMaster
Yakima Herald-Republic Newspaper
ezra@yakima-herald.com
509-577-7732

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On 2/18/06, subimage interactive <subimage@gmail.com>
wrote:
> I''m pinging the list to see if anyone is working on an open-source
> e-commerce engine based on Rails yet - something like OSCommerice I guess.

There''s store.rb
http://trac.vaillant.ca/store.rb/wiki

it seems to be going really slow but there are still signs of life
there. I''m sure they''ll be thrilled to welcome new/more
contributors.

C

subimage interactive wrote:
> I''m pinging the list to see if anyone is working on an open-source
> e-commerce engine based on Rails yet - something like OSCommerice I 
> guess. Anyone? Is there interest out there for such a thing?
I''d be interested.
I''m currently building on an e-commerce system in rails, so I would
have
some code to contribute.

BTW, who is the hosting through on the GenSelect site?  It was very slow 
for me and actually became unresponsive!  I''m assuming the hosting was 
to blame and not the code!

Dan

Cool - I''m working on getting the code ready to be released into the
wild.

GenSelect is actually hosted on a very screwed up MediaTemple server at the
moment. All of my sites are going to be switched to a new dedicated server
over at rimuhosting this week most likely.

MediaTemple = not rails friendly...

On 2/20/06, Dan Harper <dan@danharper.org> wrote:
>
> subimage interactive wrote:
> > I''m pinging the list to see if anyone is working on an
open-source
> > e-commerce engine based on Rails yet - something like OSCommerice I
> > guess. Anyone? Is there interest out there for such a thing?
> I''d be interested.
> I''m currently building on an e-commerce system in rails, so I
would have
> some code to contribute.
>
> BTW, who is the hosting through on the GenSelect site?  It was very slow
> for me and actually became unresponsive!  I''m assuming the hosting
was
> to blame and not the code!
>
> Dan
>
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
>


--
seth at subimage interactive
http://www.subimage.com/sublog/
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On 2/18/06, subimage interactive <subimage@gmail.com>
wrote:
> I''m pinging the list to see if anyone is working on an open-source
> e-commerce engine based on Rails yet - something like OSCommerice I guess.
> Anyone? Is there interest out there for such a thing?
>
> I have such a product which has been extracted from real world code. It
> currently runs 3 production rails sites in various shapes and forms,
> implemented as a rails engine.
>
> Basic feature list:
> - A very basic CMS & blog
> - Product & order management
> - Online store
> -- Integration with Authorize.net & FedEx shipping (for rate
calculation)
> - Q&A / contact & FAQ management
> - A fairly nice admin UI -
> http://vault.subimage.com/substruct/admin_order.png
>
> This product has been created from contracts I''ve had over the
last 6-8
> months. I''ve never managed an open source project before, and
wondering how
> big of a time commitment it might be.
>
> I''m a freelancer who runs a two-man web shop...so I''m
looking to enhance the
> product with a little bit of help if possible and perhaps bring in some
more
> business selling commercial support & customizations.
>
> Any feedback or comments on taking on such a challenge would be welcome.

Hm.  What I''d like to see is a written up document about how to
properly go about creating an e-commerce site.  How the products table
generally should be laid out.  How orders should relate to products
and inventory and shipping.  General guidelines about credit card
handling.  Stuff like that.

Once people have access to that, creating the store in Rails shouldn''t
be too difficult.

This is exactly what''s covered the "Agile Rails" book

On Tue, 2006-02-21 at 09:54 -0800, Joe Van Dyk wrote:

> 
> Hm.  What I''d like to see is a written up document about how to
> properly go about creating an e-commerce site.  How the products table
> generally should be laid out.  How orders should relate to products
> and inventory and shipping.  General guidelines about credit card
> handling.  Stuff like that.
> 
> Once people have access to that, creating the store in Rails
shouldn''t
> be too difficult.
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
> 
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The Agile Rails book is an incomplete (and probably too simplistic) solution.

Joe

On 2/21/06, Charlie Bowman <charlie@castlebranch.com>
wrote:
>  This is exactly what''s covered the "Agile Rails" book
>
>  On Tue, 2006-02-21 at 09:54 -0800, Joe Van Dyk wrote:
>
>
>
>
> Hm. What I''d like to see is a written up document about how to
> properly go about creating an e-commerce site. How the products table
> generally should be laid out. How orders should relate to products
> and inventory and shipping. General guidelines about credit card
> handling. Stuff like that.
>
> Once people have access to that, creating the store in Rails
shouldn''t
> be too difficult.
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
>
>
>

On Feb 21, 2006, at 3:30 PM, Joe Van Dyk wrote:
> The Agile Rails book is an incomplete (and probably too simplistic)  
> solution.
It certainly doesn''t cover the e-commerce side, not does it deal with  
product categorization and so on. I wouldn''t want to pretend that it  
should be used as the basis for a sophisticated store offering.


Dave

Having worked on a Rails storefront / catalog / fulfillment system  
for the past three months, I totally agree that there''s much more to  
an e-commerce solution than is in the AWD book. :)  Like has been  
said about implementing a forum, once you get into it, you can be  
surprised at the complexity that a full e-commerce engine entails.   
This, I think, is why there are many cart solutions out there, but  
few that are open source (the one I''m working on isn''t).



On Feb 21, 2006, at 1:30 PM, Joe Van Dyk wrote:
> The Agile Rails book is an incomplete (and probably too simplistic)  
> solution.
>
> Joe
>
> On 2/21/06, Charlie Bowman <charlie@castlebranch.com> wrote:
>>  This is exactly what''s covered the "Agile Rails"
book
>>
>>  On Tue, 2006-02-21 at 09:54 -0800, Joe Van Dyk wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Hm. What I''d like to see is a written up document about how to
>> properly go about creating an e-commerce site. How the products table
>> generally should be laid out. How orders should relate to products
>> and inventory and shipping. General guidelines about credit card
>> handling. Stuff like that.
>>
>> Once people have access to that, creating the store in Rails  
>> shouldn''t
>> be too difficult.
>> _______________________________________________
>> Rails mailing list
>> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
>> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Rails mailing list
>> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
>> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
>>
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails

Benjamin Curtis wrote:
> Having worked on a Rails storefront / catalog / fulfillment system  for
> the past three months, I totally agree that there''s much more to 
an
> e-commerce solution than is in the AWD book. :)  Like has been  said
> about implementing a forum, once you get into it, you can be  surprised
> at the complexity that a full e-commerce engine entails.   This, I
> think, is why there are many cart solutions out there, but  few that are
> open source (the one I''m working on isn''t).
For people interested in this sort of thing, OFBiz
(http://www.ofbiz.org) is code worth looking at, even if it''s in Java -
if nothing else, to glean some ideas from.  They have a good community
around it, and it''s under a very liberal license.  It does ecommerce,
but also some logistics like shipping, warehouse, and other things.

-- 
David N. Welton
- http://www.dedasys.com/davidw/

Linux, Open Source Consulting
- http://www.dedasys.com/

On 2/26/06, David N. Welton <davidw@dedasys.com> wrote:
> For people interested in this sort of thing, OFBiz
> (http://www.ofbiz.org) is code worth looking at, even if it''s in
Java -
> if nothing else, to glean some ideas from.  They have a good community
> around it, and it''s under a very liberal license.  It does
ecommerce,
> but also some logistics like shipping, warehouse, and other things.
>
Hi All,

I''ve been following this conversation for a while, and finally decided
to put my 2 cents in....

Coming from a Perl background, I spent a lot of time implementing
e-commerce engines by modifying Interchange and open source e-commerce
application written in Perl (http://www.icdevgroup.org).

If a project is started to make a real e-commerce engine in RoR,
taking a look at how Interchange implements these things .

BTW, I''m currently working on implementing the FedEx FSM Direct XML
API as a RoR plugin. Which of course would be a perfect for a RoR
e-commerce engine. ;)

Shawn Mathews
stuckinrealtime@gmail.com

I had to do some searching a while back for something along these
lines. The offerings that exist in PHP are utterly nightmarish as far
as I could tell at the time. I haven''t seen Interchange, that sounds
pretty cool, but fwiw, if there were a reasonably useful RoR
e-commerce option, I''m sure it would come in very handy for a lot of
people. There''s also the side benefit that if other people do pick it
up they can uncover any security holes it might have. The more users
you have, on that side of things, the safer your system becomes.

But yeah, you''ll get better response if you actually do it. :-)

On 2/26/06, Shawn Mathews <stuckinrealtime@gmail.com>
wrote:
> On 2/26/06, David N. Welton <davidw@dedasys.com> wrote:
>
> > For people interested in this sort of thing, OFBiz
> > (http://www.ofbiz.org) is code worth looking at, even if it''s
in Java -
> > if nothing else, to glean some ideas from.  They have a good community
> > around it, and it''s under a very liberal license.  It does
ecommerce,
> > but also some logistics like shipping, warehouse, and other things.
> >
>
> Hi All,
>
> I''ve been following this conversation for a while, and finally
decided
> to put my 2 cents in....
>
> Coming from a Perl background, I spent a lot of time implementing
> e-commerce engines by modifying Interchange and open source e-commerce
> application written in Perl (http://www.icdevgroup.org).
>
> If a project is started to make a real e-commerce engine in RoR,
> taking a look at how Interchange implements these things .
>
> BTW, I''m currently working on implementing the FedEx FSM Direct
XML
> API as a RoR plugin. Which of course would be a perfect for a RoR
> e-commerce engine. ;)
>
> Shawn Mathews
> stuckinrealtime@gmail.com
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
>

--
Giles Goat Boy

http://gilesmakesmusic.blogspot.com
http://gileswritescode.blogspot.com

In case you missed the announcement...

http://dev.subimage.com/projects/substruct

On 2/26/06, Shawn Mathews <stuckinrealtime@gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> On 2/26/06, David N. Welton <davidw@dedasys.com> wrote:
>
> > For people interested in this sort of thing, OFBiz
> > (http://www.ofbiz.org) is code worth looking at, even if it''s
in Java -
> > if nothing else, to glean some ideas from.  They have a good community
> > around it, and it''s under a very liberal license.  It does
ecommerce,
> > but also some logistics like shipping, warehouse, and other things.
> >
>
> Hi All,
>
> I''ve been following this conversation for a while, and finally
decided
> to put my 2 cents in....
>
> Coming from a Perl background, I spent a lot of time implementing
> e-commerce engines by modifying Interchange and open source e-commerce
> application written in Perl (http://www.icdevgroup.org).
>
> If a project is started to make a real e-commerce engine in RoR,
> taking a look at how Interchange implements these things .
>
> BTW, I''m currently working on implementing the FedEx FSM Direct
XML
> API as a RoR plugin. Which of course would be a perfect for a RoR
> e-commerce engine. ;)
>
> Shawn Mathews
> stuckinrealtime@gmail.com
> _______________________________________________
> Rails mailing list
> Rails@lists.rubyonrails.org
> http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails
>


--
seth at subimage interactive
http://www.subimage.com/sublog/
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