John Gage wrote:
>I have a rather simple question that arises out of a great deal of
>thought. Why doesn't the open source movement in medicine and OSHCA in
>particular align itself and become part of the Apache project?
Apache project is centered around a web server. It is not an appropriate
umbrella for open source in medicine, since not everyone agrees that HTTP
and the paradigm of web server and browser is the only way to deliver
healthcare information over the internet.
Beyond that, Apache is quite usable and stable as it is without any help
from me or, I presume, from anyone whose primary interest is in software for
healthcare. It makes much more sense to me for those of us committed to
using the web as delivery mechanism to connect with the Mozilla project, but
again, I don't think that is an appropriate umbrella for OSCHA either.
It does seem appropriate for individual projects to align, if they so
choose, with Apache or Mozilla or Corba or Java or Perl, etc., but other
projects are clearly aligned with other protocols and paradigms while others
aim to remain neutral on this question.
The value of OSHCA and this mail list is in bringing together people with a
variety of backgrounds and knowledge into a discussion where we can each
become better informed about alternatives that we might not consider
otherwise.
>
>I advance this question because I see fragmentation as the bane of open
>source in medicine.
Fragmentation is the starting point (coupled with ignorance of alternatives
as we pursue our individual solutions in isolation), followed by awareness
of the diversity as we discuss and research the various topics that come up
on this list, followed, hopefully, by collaboration and eventual (but
probably not total) convergence.
---------------------------------------
Jim Self
Manager and Chief Developer
VMTH Computer Services, UC Davis
(http://www.vmth.ucdavis.edu/us/jaself)
