Quoting Tim Churches <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: ... > Probably, but it is nothing short of shameful that a US medical > informatics society insists that the rest of the global medical > informatics community use US software which has to be paid for in US > dollars merely to make a paper submission.
Tim, It may be "shameful" if they chose Microsoft out of evil intentions. My guess is that they simply don't know what they are doing. In which case, we should try to educate them - and then depending on how they respond, we can either congratulate them or expose their irrationality. :-) > Apart from violating every > principle of promoting open data formats, it is a prejudicial against > those who cannot afford or otherwise choose not to use MS Word (or other > Microsoft products). Since when did AMIA (or IMIA) subscribe to our preference for open data formats? If AMIA truly appreciates "open data formats", then we won't need OSHCA or the OpenHealth List! Just join AMIA :-). > I am sure that AMIA has the collective wit and resources > to enable their submission processing system to handle other formats, if > they chose to. Bah! I beg to differ. People who organize and control organizations, even technical organizations like AMIA (and OSHCA) are not technicians - they are politicians. As technicians, we need to help them stay with the technological agenda. If we don't, they will begin to act like we exist to serve their power-grabbing needs :-). Best regards, Andrew --- Andrew P. Ho, M.D. OIO: Open Infrastructure for Outcomes www.TxOutcome.Org
