Damian Hickey, managing director of Brisbane-based software company osCommRes, said a fork of OsCommerce, in version 2.0, is one of the first among e-commerce systems globally to be services-oriented.

"People are really product-oriented," Hickey said, adding that osCommRes is suitable for predictable services and high-end business-to-business.

"Professional people who contract out their time buy products online and expect that customers of a business will also buy online."

Since forking OsCommerce in October last year, osCommRes has received private venture funding, grown to 17 staff in Australia and India, and claims more than 10,000 downloads.

With 11 developers, osCommRes is released under the GPL. Hickey admits it was a "big risk" in not adopting a dual licensing strategy like other open source companies, but believes it will result in a more active ecosystem.