Cubit Accounting Software, which develops, supplies and maintains the locally developed Cubit Accounting package, has released a BSD-licensed Point of Sale system.

Targeted at the local retail SMME market, the package has been developed specifically for local conditions, and has been running at a few local businesses for the past six months, the company said in a statement yesterday.

Cubit CEO Andre Coetzee says it is the first locally developed open source solution tailored specifically for this market, and that it includes all aspects of retail sales. The system can be installed on all Windows, Apple Mac and Linux platforms. The BSD software licence was chosen because in this application it allows the local software industry
to grow.

“With the current emphasis on high petrol costs and a weak Rand the South African software industry has the potential to generate the software that we use ourselves and even export technology. This in turn will create new job opportunities in the ICT sector and result in more affordable and competing software products for hard pressed consumers,” said Coetzee.

“With the BSD licence the application source code belongs to everyone and anyone may change, customise and add to the software without even having to disclose the source code to anyone. Anyone may also download the source code, recompile, re-brand it and sell it to anyone else,” he said.