Date:	Tue, 16 Mar 1999 02:22:22 -0700
From:	Brad Pepers <brad@linuxcanada.com>
To:	lwn@lwn.net
Subject: Announcement: POS Development Project


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday March 15, 1999

                 Linux Canada Inc. unveils International
                        POS Development Project

SUNDRE, ALBERTA, CANADA - Re-affirming its commitment to Linux and
the development of Linux based applications, Linux Canada Inc. today
announced its intent to make available source code for its LinuxPOS
and LinuxRETAIL applications.  The source code will be provided to
those entities who wish to participate in an international retail
point-of-sale development project.

Linux Canada Inc. have been working with Linux since 1994.  Their SCO
Unix based application, Retailer's Choice, was converted to run on
Linux and the first Linux installation was in 1995.  The feature set,
quality, and reliability of Linux make it an excellent O/S for the
mission critical retail environment.

Over the years retail organizations have been plagued with the comings
and goings of small software companies.  The product offerings have
been extremely expensive as have been the support and maintenance
contracts.  Source code has been extremely over-protected as if it were
a sacred treasure.  Many software companies have gone by the way-side
leaving their retail customers without support, service or source,
forcing them to look for alternatives.

POS Development Project

The main reason that no retail point of sale product has emerged as
the de-facto standard world wide is because of the vast differences
that exist in language, currency and taxes.  Until now it has been
impossible for any one company to develop and keep up with the ever
changing retail environment.  Consequently, retail applications tend to
be targeted to finite geographic areas and specific retail verticals.

The POS Development Project unveiled by Linux Canada Inc. will change
all of that.  Rather than the developers in Alberta, Canada trying to
build a product for the world, the source code will be released to the
world allowing the resources of the world to develop what is needed.
All development projects will be registered with Linux Canada Inc.
Developers will check in source code with Linux Canada Inc. who will
ensure quality and reliability.  In addition developers will provide a
log of their hours spent on the project.  Linux Canada Inc. will
provide, in return, a credit to the developer which can be applied to
the purchase of LinuxPOS and LinuxRETAIL licenses.

This is believed to be a very unique commercial endeavor.  The model
allows Linux Canada Inc. to maintain ownership rights to their
software while providing value-added resellers, dealers, and retail
chains the following:

	- stability that only Linux can provide
	- flexibility to add the features and functions that are needed
	- peace of mind of solid local support
	- features and functions added by other developers around the world
	- quality product at a low price

At detailed look at the scope, terms and conditions of the project can
be seen at http://www.linuxcanada.com.

LinuxPOS is a revolutionary point-of-sale application, bringing
tremendous functionality and a dynamic user interface to the retail
market place.  LinuxPOS was written in Tcl/tk which has excellent GUI
capabilities, a strong feature set, and which comes complete with
source code.  In a true client/server relationship, LinuxPOS queries the
server on a real-time basis.  However LinuxPOS also maintains a complete
database of its own.  Should the server happen to fail, LinuxPOS
continues running using its internal data and will automatically
synchronize with the server when it returns.

LinuxRETAIL is a new inventory control software package written
in Java.  Java provides strong GUI capabilities through the Swing API
and also provides important features such as threading and networking
which are vital for a server product.  This package is still under
construction and will be released for beta testing in the May/June
time frame.

Linux Canada Inc. is a privately owned corporation based in Sundre,
Alberta, Canada.  Dedicated to Linux, the company is also a Red Hat
distributor, and is the Canadian distributor for Cyclades port cards,
routers and terminal servers.

Product names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered
trademarks of their respective companies.

For further information please contact:

	Philip Tonnellier
	President
	Linux Canada Inc
	(250) 344-3085
	phil@linuxcanada.com
	http://www.linuxcanada.com