Christian, Molly & All, I'm neutral on the issue of incorporation. If it can help then I'm for it. But I don't want the discussion on incorporation to distract us from the possibility of convening our next OSHCA conference.
I'm a strong advocate of having our next OSCHA Conference, with or without incorporation. I've started raising the question of support for a conference with some of the organizations I work with. Here's how I describe it: Can your organization host a three day conference for 150 people, providing auditorium, break out rooms, technical support (wifi + audio-visual facilities with staff), food (continental breakfast plus full lunches) and facilities support (pre-conference planning, attendee registration services, facility access and security, etc). I explain that the conference underwriting has to be substantial because international attendees will need to pay for travel and keep their on site costs to lodging and incidental daily expenses. Consider this post the discussion fork that poses the question: What month in 2006 is best for an OSCHA meeting? I think it goes without saying that many of us will be in Brisbane in August 2007 http://www.medinfo2007.org/ But maybe we can also meet in 2006. As it is still January, now is a good time to focus on this question. With best regards, [wr] - - - - - - - On Jan 14, 2006, at 2:31 PM, Christian Heller wrote: > Hi Molly, > > some weeks ago, about 22 of us mailing list members expressed their > support for incorporating OSHCA. I take the liberty to list those: > - Molly Cheah > - Brian Bray > - Adrian Midgley > - Fred Trotter > - Tim Cook > - Christian Heller > - Joseph Dal Molin > - David Chan > - Nandalal Gunaratne > - K.S. Bhaskar > - Thaddeus N. Albers > - Mike McCoy (indirectly through Joseph Dal Molin) > - Jubal John (interest in background of the key people involved) > - 7 further people who voted on the second mailing list-question > - Alric O'Connor > - Thomas Beale > (here I stopped counting) > --> about 22 > > This is not that many of far more than a hundred list readers. > However, it is not few either. It is a start. > >> ... champion, promote, co-ordinate, collaborate etc open source >> applications >> in health care. >> ... "The Open Source Health Care Alliance is a collaborative forum to >> ... "OSHCA is a community of people in the health care and >> informatics > > Nevertheless, I was asking myself again for reasons to get OSHCA > incorporated: A website might suffice to promote OSHCA; a mailing list > to collaborate; coordination between projects may not necessarily be > needed as every project follows its own ideas/technologies anyway. > > A common website could serve as portal providing lists and evaluations > of our projects -- what was lately asked for in this list again. > But there are already plenty of such portals (Debian-Med etc.). > Some of these portals just lack the necessary continuity and updates. > > Most of us have their own project and invest considerable time into > it. > I for one do not have many resources and will to contribute much to > organisational/paper work for OSHCA, since concrete results will be > few. > It is my guess that many other project developers have similar > thoughts. > > So let us look for more points speaking for an incorporated OSHCA! > A list of concrete reasons to incorporate OSHCA coming to my mind: > - organise conferences (seems to be easier for booking places etc.) > - get publicity (taken more seriously than a loose group of people) > - approach governments and large corporations > - ask for funding > > If somebody sees more points, please add to this list! > It should, in my opinion, only contain points that *cannot* be > achieved with mailing list/ website/ loose group of people alone. > Once we have identified these points, they may become OSHCA's focus. > > [..] >> next steps to form the protem committee and get OSHCA >> incorporated. We >> also need to decide where OSHCA should be incorporated - developed or >> developing country and then zoom into deciding the specific country. > > Correct steps. > > It doesn't matter much to me in which country OSHCA gets > incorporated, as > long as it is a democratic one, and without "ruling-the-world" > tendencies. > Perhaps a developing country is even better, since it may better know > what is really needed urgently. > >> My apologies for this "lengthy" e-mail. Just to make up for the lapse >> .... :) I still have the list of volunteers for the protem >> committee. In >> between someone requested for a short write-up of each as well.... > > Such a write-up should also contain which open source software (OSS) > project or other organisation people represent, i.e. in which area > of OSS they are active. > > Well done, Molly! ... and a quite short extract (as I like it). > > Thanks, > Christian > > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > [wr] - - - - - - - - will ross mendocino informatics 216 west perkins street, suite 206 ukiah, california 95482 usa 707.272.7255 [voice] 707.462.5015 [fax] - - - - - - - - Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/openhealth/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
