We have learned that there is a considerable amount of work to be done with most closed source developments before the source code can be publicly released.
The model of using a (previously) commercial system as the seed or core around which to develop an Open Source system is a good one, but the code would have to be checked through, in order to be sure all of it is actually in the gift of the current owners to release. The infection tracking system the Welsh Public Health Laboratory Service developed, for instance, had various libraries in it which required manoevres to make leagally releasable. In a year when SCO are bent on a Kamikaze attack on IBM over the provenance of some code in Linux, the AAFP would be sensible to have their code checked for historic encumbrances - many of which I suspect would be resolved by just asking their originators before releasing them, but in all cases the question has to be asked out of politeness and the laws of copyright. So there is a time... and when code appears, we shall see. The SPIRIT repository gives the underlying core as "Phoenix", lately from Oceania. If so, then if this Pheoenix did crash and burn, it will be nice to see it rise from the ashes and spread its wings. -- From one of the Linux desktops of Dr Adrian Midgley http://www.defoam.net/
