At Mon, 31 Mar 2003 09:33:42 -0500 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

>Is open source at this same dangeous place of ambiguity where the 
>orignal concepts and process's give way to mass production of 
>interchangeable (and origin irrelevant) parts? 

Projects either do release their code under a license conformant with the
open source definition... or they do not.

For me, trudging my way up the mountain path to linux nirvana,  that is
the deciding factor as to whether I give a software project attention or
not. I imagine that is the case for most on this list. 

Occasionally I glance over into the valley of application space to see if
there is anything new--I wonder whether to devote time to attempting an
install of VISTA for example. In comparison, the AAFP's venture seems to
be at a much earlier (dare I say vapourous?) stage. All I have is <http:/
/www.aafp.org/x19741.xml> through LinuxMedNews (thanks Ignacio)

One of the lessons I took away from the open source seminar I ran for
informatics students this time last year was how hard they found it to
get their heads round the advantages of "giving software away for free."
It might be nice to deliver AAFP decisionmakers briefing materials to
help them know what kind of open source they're getting, and to help them
with advocacy/sales/marketing with their own target audience. 

If the AAFP are genuine--and it'd be nice to see a CVS repository
established and licensing resolved early in the evolution of the
project--that would be a useful thing members of the list could help
with. There is doubtless a real job to be done educating AAFP members
about the professional and intellectual virtues of the open source approach.

Regards to all,

D.
--
Douglas Carnall
+44 (0) 207 241 1255
+44 (0) 7900 212 881
http://carnall.org

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