On Thu, 16 Oct 2003, Matias Klein wrote: ... > Obviously, developers should be compensated for their work if people > wish for them to flourish.
Matias, There is no disgreement regarding the utility of compensation for work performed. > I believe the market will offer profits to systems developers so they > can continue to innovate and develop the "next generation" of valuable > products. This is where closed-source and open-source approaches diverge. A few differences come to mind: 1. Closed-source excludes broader participation in the innovation steps that lead to the next generation of valuable product. Open-source does not. 2. Open-source can re-use and be re-used without the added overhead of licensing discussions/contracts. Closed-source products cannot. ----------- > If people are suspicious and/or paranoid about companies potentially > black-mailing them, that is their right. It is a legitimate and real risk, well-grounded in legal precedence, contract law, and recent history (e.g. SCO vs. IBM). > I can only represent the values of my company, and I can truthfully > state that we are only in business to further the goals I laid out in my > previous post: If you are able to formalize your very nice marketing-speak in your software license/contract, then the black-mailing risk may be somewhat contained. What legal assurance do your customers have? > > Why should you turn away potential profit? Why > > would you not maximize profit? Why would you not use your market > > "dominance" to protect your market share? > > Andrew, you are talking about a very small number of companies that > truly have the power to do this over an extended period of time. Even companies that do this for a brief period of time impede progress and damage quality of medical care. ... > > Join us, it may not too late for you yet. By the time you hit $32B/year, > > it will be much harder to switch over. :-) > > I'm already with you. Not completely yet. :-) > We participate in the OSS community, and as I stated, we plan to release > an openEHR compatible archetype modeler soon. That's a step towards our direction. As you said, most physicians don't know the difference between open-source and closed-source anyways. What is the risk to your company if your EMR software is licensed under GPL? Best regards, Andrew --- Andrew P. Ho, M.D. OIO: Open Infrastructure for Outcomes www.TxOutcome.Org
