Perhaps I am wrong... wait... I know... hard to believe :)
BUT
My point about FOIA's "freeness" is that it is free, not open.
That is why people take it modify it and make other products from it.
If it where open...it would foster more development. Several people I
know are interested in Peds, and Gyne... which are notably absent.
Several groups from my understanding have developed peds and gyne. But,
have not shared them, simply because they don't have to.
Now, if someone else develops peds and shares it to the community with a
gpl'd vista then everyone can use it. And, the people who wanted to
develop peds, now can focus their energies on other aspects. Let's say
then that Kevin writes a completely new imaging system for vista because
all the time he would have devoted to replicating a peds module is freed
for him to work on imaging. He can horde it, but if he uses the gpl'd
vista and the peds module that has been added then he is ethically and
legally bound to release it gpl. Kevin's name was chosen at random but,
the example wasn't.
By saying that people will not use GPL until someone makes a GPL
contribution is in my mind the exactly wrong way to look at it.
You make it GPL and people will grow it to the point were companies will
actually prefer to use a much modified GPLd VistA than the FOIA which of
course will still be incorporated into the GPLd product.
The idea isn't leading the horse to water and trying to make him
drink... It is rather ... you lead the horse to water... there is an
overhanging rock formation that nearly bridges the water. The overhang
has been built by years of water erosion due to some beavers upstream
diverting water into this particular channel. Now... the horse with his
MIT doctorate in civil engineering takes leftover wood from the beavers
dam building and completes the small portion remaining of this "bridge"
He then claims the bridge is his and requires toll to pass. Oh... and he
won't tell you how he made the remaining portion of the bridge. But,
you are free to go find your own overhang.. or perhaps just to go hang.
Or something like that.
Manolis
The Opensource mother goose
On Sun, 2005-04-24 at 09:48 -0400, Joseph Dal Molin wrote:
> There is nothing preventing anyone from working with VistA as an open
> source code base. As far as licensing is concernec, there is an old
> saying "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it
> drink"....with emphasis on the "make". What is more of a challenge is
> "opening" the mindset of those who have built businesses with or have
> bought into the "legacy" paradigms that we are all familiar with. An
> appropriate license is necessary but it is not sufficient to stimulate
> open source behaviour....until there is a compatible and significantly
> more valuable alternative to FOIA VistA there is no incentive to
> seriously consider and understand the open source process. The
> interesting thing is that there will always be a FOIA alternative so
> companies will be free to continue pursuing whatever approach they
> prefer with that code base.
>
> Joseph
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