[openhealth] Yet more UK health IT programme woes
Noticed on the UK RadStats (radical statisticians) mailing list. An object lesson in what not to do. Tim C NHS trusts pay millions in fines to suppliers of delayed IT system John Carvel, social affairs editor Tuesday June 6, 2006 The Guardian NHS trusts are being made to pay multimillion-pound penalties to computer suppliers because of a clause in contracts for the health service's £20bn IT scheme. Read on at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1790952,00.html where, towards the end, the situation is summed up: Mr Bacon [Conservative MP Richard Bacon] said: At a time when hard-pressed NHS trusts are having to make painful choices to reduce deficits, they are being forced to pay money they don't have and release staff they can't spare, for something they don't want and which doesn't work ... the NHS is being hit with fines running into tens of millions of pounds, which it simply cannot afford. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- You can search right from your browser? It's easy and it's free. See how. http://us.click.yahoo.com/_7bhrC/NGxNAA/yQLSAA/W4wwlB/TM ~- 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/
Re: [openhealth] Sustainable technology?
Wayne WIlson wrote: Molly sent us this data., which is important enough to restate: To support our focus on developing countries, the biggest challenge is equity and the data found in this presentation says it all. High-income countries: 16% population 7% burden of disease 89% health spending 94% Internet hosts Low-income countries: 84% population 93% burden of disease 11% health spending 6% Internet hosts To make some other points obvious: 1) Any solution which involves 'upgrading' the low-income countries to the state of resource consumption which the high-income countries use to support these numbers will only have limited success! 2) If you didn't understand point #1, the US has roughly 5% of the worlds population and consumes roughly 25% of the worlds oil production. Most of this consumption is split between the transportation sector, electrical generation and food production. Electrical generation is crucial in the IT industry. 2a) I am 'embedded' in the US health care delivery system, managing computer servers. Our current trend is to obsolete computers every 3 to 5 years, replacing them with ever more powerful and power consuming models. I have been on the 'bleeding' edge of trying to conserve power, but in less than three years of growth, we have exhausted the capacity of our power feeds coming in ~ 30KW and our cooling capacity for that power load. Yes. I had cause to visit one of the data centres for the govt health organisation for which I work a few weeks ago, to inspect our population health servers (which occupy just one rack). I was surprised to notice several new racks of servers, each absolutely full of blade servers each with 20 or 30 CPUs in each unit i.e. hundreds of CPUs per rack, and there were several such racks. Drooling at all that computational power, I asked what they were for. The answer: They are Citrix servers for the XYZ application. For those unfamiliar with it, Citrix is a (closed source) technology which allows Windows desktop sessions running on central servers (the huge bank of blade servers) to be remotely controlled from Windows desktops via a thin client. Rather like VNC for Windows, but a bit more sophisticated. The XYZ application was a Windows GUI app which needed to be accessed from wards in hundreds of public sector hospitals, and the use of Citrix and the centralised virtual Windows desktops very appropriately avoided the hassle and expense and difficulties of installing the application in so many locations. However, knowing that the GUI application in question did not have a terribly complex interface, I could not help but reflect that had the software been implemented as a Web application, then only a handful of central servers would have been needed to service it. The (valid) arguments were that redeveloping the application in question as a Web app would have cost more than the banks of Citrix servers etc needed to deploy it as a Windows GUI application, and that the Citrix servers could be used for other Windows apps in the future. All true. But there is a lesson there for software developers who wish their code to be deployed in places where there are not the funds available to purchase large banks of Citrix servers... In the more local clinic settings, there is a great deal to be said for the use of robust, low-power discless workstations (eg IBM NetVista - no longer sold but available second-hand - or NeoWare Capio - see for example http://www.itreviews.co.uk/hardware/h611.htm ) served from a Linux (or even Windows) server. Alternatively, a multi-headed Linux server is worth considering if all the screens and keyboards can be positioned close to the server. And then there is power supply technology. Solar and wind power are increasingly affordable for remote locations, but they demand very low power hardware eg machines based on the VIA chipsets - which are slower but use only a fraction of the power of desktop Intel or AMD CPUs and chipsets. The use of cheaper laptops as servers is also worth considering. Modern laptops can be fairly reliable as long as they are left in one physical place and are not moved around while running eg treat the laptop like a server and leave it in a (ventilated) cupboard. Also uninterruptable powers supply technology is important, possibly with generators (yuck!) to fill in for longer outages of mains power. During the power failures (brown outs) in Manila in 2000 I saw all sorts of ingenious (and sometimes hair-raising) battery-backed power supplies for computers cobbled together from car batteries and inverters (or in some cases the batteries were supplying 12V and 5V DC current direct to the computers, which is more efficient). Then there are issues of dust, moisture and humidity protection - computers designed for nice, clean environments common in rich countries often don't last well in poorer country settings. And that's just the hardware Therefore, I
Re: [openhealth] Re: OSHCA
remarkably non-partisan, so we don't expect to have to deal with a lot of political issues in the normal business of OSHCA. Tim C Tim.Churches a écrit : David Forslund wrote: I apologize for bringing this up, but it does affect my relationship with OSHCA since it is being incorporated in Malaysia. I will be unable to support OSHCA in Malaysia because of the politics/human rights issues I see happening in that country. I am sorry that you feel that way, Dave. However, it is your call and I don't think it is productive or wise to try to change your mind. We will have a separate OSHCA mailing list established very shortly which will handle all OSHCA business, and this openhealth list can be devoted purely to more general health informatics issues. I hope you will continue to participate in the openhealth list, because your technical expertise is greatly valued. Tim C K.S. Bhaskar wrote: Please, let's keep the discussion on this mailing list focused on Free/Libré and Open Source Software (with a broad interpretation of software, so discussion of ICD codes and OSHCA incorporation are within the scope of the group) as it pertains to healthcare. There are plenty of other forums for other topics. Thank you very much. Regards -- Bhaskar Yahoo! Groups Links SPONSORED LINKS Software distribution http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=msk=Software+distributionw1=Software+distributionw2=Salon+softwarew3=Medical+softwarew4=Software+associationw5=Software+jewelryw6=Software+deploymentc=6s=142.sig=XcuzZXUhhqAa4nls1QYuCg Salon software http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=msk=Salon+softwarew1=Software+distributionw2=Salon+softwarew3=Medical+softwarew4=Software+associationw5=Software+jewelryw6=Software+deploymentc=6s=142.sig=CW98GQRF3_rWnTxU62jsdA Medical software http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=msk=Medical+softwarew1=Software+distributionw2=Salon+softwarew3=Medical+softwarew4=Software+associationw5=Software+jewelryw6=Software+deploymentc=6s=142.sig=86bMQqtlpuDBvFzrRcQApw Software association http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=msk=Software+associationw1=Software+distributionw2=Salon+softwarew3=Medical+softwarew4=Software+associationw5=Software+jewelryw6=Software+deploymentc=6s=142.sig=YhKUbszKHqjPXh21AbTSwg Software jewelry http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=msk=Software+jewelryw1=Software+distributionw2=Salon+softwarew3=Medical+softwarew4=Software+associationw5=Software+jewelryw6=Software+deploymentc=6s=142.sig=9EWe0V3gtVyQaCqOgchvlw Software deployment http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=msk=Software+deploymentw1=Software+distributionw2=Salon+softwarew3=Medical+softwarew4=Software+associationw5=Software+jewelryw6=Software+deploymentc=6s=142.sig=VNvgzp250z70B2EFV3JYqg YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS * Visit your group openhealth http://groups.yahoo.com/group/openhealth on the web. * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/. SPONSORED LINKS Software distribution Salon software Medical software Software association Software jewelry Software deployment YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "openhealth" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
Re: [openhealth] Re: OSHCA
David Forslund wrote: What is happening with the setting up of OSHCA in Malaysia? It has been quiet for some time now. My understanding is that the papers have been filed with the relevant authority and presumably they are being or will soon be assessed and processed. Meanwhile arrangements are being made to establish a new OSHCA web site - hopefully we'll have something working in a week or three. Is there anyone familar with Plone who could assist? It is disturbing to see the Prime Minister of Malaysia shaking hands with the Hamas terrorist Mahmoud Zahar. What possible good can come from that? How are we supposed to interpret this action? That question is rather off-topic, but anyway: Mahmoud Zahar is the Foreign Minister of a democratically and popularly elected government, visiting Malaysia. Thus it would be rather surprising for the Malaysian Prime Minister not to shake his hand. As to whether Zahar is a terrorist, well, one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter. I am not defending the actions of Hamas or its supporters, but it is worth remembering that it is well documented and undisputed that numerous Zionist groups engaged in terrorist campaigns before and shortly after the declaration of the state of Israel in 1948. Violence, both unofficial and state-sanctioned, breeds more violence. Tim C SPONSORED LINKS Software distribution Salon software Medical software Software association Software jewelry Software deployment YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "openhealth" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
Re: [openhealth] Re: OSHCA
David Forslund wrote: Tim.Churches wrote: David Forslund wrote: What is happening with the setting up of OSHCA in Malaysia? It has been quiet for some time now. My understanding is that the papers have been filed with the relevant authority and presumably they are being or will soon be assessed and processed. Meanwhile arrangements are being made to establish a new OSHCA web site - hopefully we'll have something working in a week or three. Is there anyone familar with Plone who could assist? It is disturbing to see the Prime Minister of Malaysia shaking hands with the Hamas terrorist Mahmoud Zahar. What possible good can come from that? How are we supposed to interpret this action? That question is rather off-topic, but anyway: Mahmoud Zahar is the Foreign Minister of a democratically and popularly elected government, visiting Malaysia. Thus it would be rather surprising for the Malaysian Prime Minister not to shake his hand. As to whether Zahar is a terrorist, well, one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter. I am not defending the actions of Hamas or its supporters, but it is worth remembering that it is well documented and undisputed that numerous Zionist groups engaged in terrorist campaigns before and shortly after the declaration of the state of Israel in 1948. Violence, both unofficial and state-sanctioned, breeds more violence. Tim C I respectfully disagree with your assessment, when the official position of a government is to seek the destruction of their neighbor and to disavow any participation in an internationally agreed to peace process. They should be treated no better than South Africa was during apartheid. Have you ever been to the West Bank or Gaza, Dave? My memory of the West Bank is of one of the most oppressive places I have visited. I never visited South Africa during the apartheid decades, but I am told by people who have visited both places that there were striking similarities. My point is that there are almost always two sides to any story, and what you read in the US newspapers and see on US TV may not provide the full picture, and may conveniently elide a lot of bitter historical conflict, with mistakes and atrocities on all sides. However, we stray way, way off topic here, so I will say no more. Tim C SPONSORED LINKS Software distribution Salon software Medical software Software association Software jewelry Software deployment YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "openhealth" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
Re: [openhealth] Re: OSHCA
David Forslund wrote: I apologize for bringing this up, but it does affect my relationship with OSHCA since it is being incorporated in Malaysia. I will be unable to support OSHCA in Malaysia because of the politics/human rights issues I see happening in that country. I am sorry that you feel that way, Dave. However, it is your call and I don't think it is productive or wise to try to change your mind. We will have a separate OSHCA mailing list established very shortly which will handle all OSHCA business, and this openhealth list can be devoted purely to more general health informatics issues. I hope you will continue to participate in the openhealth list, because your technical expertise is greatly valued. Tim C K.S. Bhaskar wrote: Please, let's keep the discussion on this mailing list focused on Free/Libré and Open Source Software (with a broad interpretation of software, so discussion of ICD codes and OSHCA incorporation are within the scope of the group) as it pertains to healthcare. There are plenty of other forums for other topics. Thank you very much. Regards -- Bhaskar SPONSORED LINKS Software distribution Salon software Medical software Software association Software jewelry Software deployment YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "openhealth" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
Re: [openhealth] Beyond standards.
K.S. Bhaskar wrote: Thomas Beale wrote: [KSB] ...snip... contracts (as a software vendor) where the software is FOSS (my company, Ocean Informatics is offering a GPL or commercial licence choice to buyers). Anyway, recently we had a conversation during the negotiation [KSB] I have a minor bone to pick with the above. Why do you consider GPL to not be a commercial license? For GT.M, our business model treats the GPL as a commercial license. The license is free but we charge for support. KS has a valid point, and may I commend to all and sundry a really excellent paper by Brendan Scott of Open Source Law. The paper, titled The Open Source Legal Landscape, is full of clear thinking and can be found on Brendan's firm's web site at http://www.opensourcelaw.biz/ Here is a quote from it relevant to the above issue: quote 4. Open Source as a New Model 4.1 Open source licensing is a customer driven market reaction to the high transaction costs and anticompetitive effects that the old model has produced. It effectively says that, through judicious use of copyright, customers can acquire software with rights analogous to ownership. In the example above, if the software is open source software, the person acquiring the software would have property-like rights over the use of the software in a manner analogous to the rights they have over the screwdriver. 4.2 The fundamental difference therefore between the old, closed source, model and the new, open source, model is that under a closed source licence, a customer acquires very restricted rights in relation to the software, whereas under an open source licence, a customer acquires very broad rights analogous to ownership of the copy they acquire. 4.3 Another way of looking at this is that open source licensing attempts to treat software as a form of property, while the old model of licensing attempts to prevent such treatment. That is, open source is a form of deregulation of the software industry. Open source uses copyright to effect that deregulation. Open Source is Pro-Copyright 5.1 An open source licence is a licence over copyright granted by the copyright owner of a work which has certain characteristics (discussed further below). As a licence, it is only meaningful in the presence of the copyright regime. Open source licences are explicitly dependent upon the continued existence of copyright for their efficacy. As open source would not exist without copyright it is incorrect to assert that open source is opposed to copyright. Complement of Commercial is Non Commercial, not Open Source 5.2 A corollary of section 4 above is that open source is a particular model for the commercialisation of software. It is a different model, but not a non commercial one. That said, there exists open source software which is made available on a non-commercial basis, just as there is closed source software which is made available on a non-commercial basis. Complement of Open is Closed, not Proprietary 5.3 A corollary of paragraph 5.1 above is that the copyright in open source software is owned by someone, otherwise there is no basis on which a licence can be granted. As such to oppose the terms proprietary and open source software implies that the copyright in open source software is not owned by someone. This is incorrect. That said, this use of proprietary software is, unfortunately, widespread. If anything, the complement of proprietary software is public domain software. That is, software over which copyright does not exist or is not asserted. /quote Tim C Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Home is just a click away. Make Yahoo! your home page now. http://us.click.yahoo.com/DHchtC/3FxNAA/yQLSAA/W4wwlB/TM ~- 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/
Re: [openhealth] Standards -- more questions
Tim.Churches wrote: Thomas Beale wrote: Alvin B. Marcelo wrote: I agree with Heitzso. ICD-10 suffers from 'usability' issues. Yet unlike the better systems (ie, SNOMED) it is freely accessible. Perhaps OSHCA can make a statement making ICD-10 the 'least common denominator' together with the caveats and recommendations as cited by Heitzso? one of the major reasons we designed archetypes in the first place was not to have to be stuck with any coding system, but to be able to use any and all of them as needed. I know people here are probably bored of hearing about archetypes - but we have them in a number of implementations now, and the data created are very usable for querying, CRUD functions etc - without any prior coding. Thomas, I suspect that I am not entirely alone in experiencing a slight degree of exasperation every time I hear about the wonders of openEHR archetypes. Why? Because we are not able to try it out ourselves, simply because there is no complete, documented and usable implementation of an openEHR archetypes storage/retrieval engine which the average developer or interested person can use - not an open source implementation, nor a commercial one. None. Yes I know there is an open source implementation in Java by a Swedish company, but it is not yet complete (the README and CHANGELOG files indicate that there are large chunks of the openEHR framework yet to be tackled by it) and there is no usable deployment documentation (or much other documentation) that I could find. And yes I know that you have implementations written in Eiffel and C#, but you have not released them, neither commercially nor as open source. And yes, the private company that was formerly DSTC (which was an Australian govt-funded IT research consortium) does have commercial health information management products which use an openEHR engine, but they only sell them as complete suites, and don't sell just an openEHR engine (or kernel as you refer to it) for incorporation into other products or projects. In the 1st quarter of 2003, as we were about to embark on our NetEpi public health data collection project, I asked you about implementations of an openEHR storage/retrieval engine (thinking that openEHR, which you had been actively promoting for 3 or 4 years at that stage, was the way to go to solve our data management issues), and the (disappointing) answer was we have implementations working but we haven't released them yet. About 4 months ago, before embarking on further round of development on the NetEpi project, I asked you the same question again - very nearly 3 years after the first time I asked - and the answer was basically the same. So yes, a small degree of boredom is setting in. But by all means keep posting to this list (and elsewhere) about openEHR, but please don't be offended if some of us (or at least me) seem less and less enthused about it as the years go by. Please note that none of the foregoing is intended as a criticism of the fact that there is currently no openEHR engine/kernel to be had for love nor money - neither you nor the openEHR Foundation nor anyone is under any obligation to release or provide an openEHR engine/kernel to any particular timetable, or even at all. I am just pointing out that that absence of available implementations necessarily has some impact on the level of enthusiasm for and interest in the openEHR concept. I realise the foregoing rant probably seems rather harsh, or just plain mean and nasty. However, it is born of frustration, because I think that openEHR is potentially a much better solution to a whole raft of health informatics problems than HL7 v3.x is ever likely to be. But HL7 V3.x has a large number of people and organisations behind it. openEHR doesn't, and the only way it will get a firm foothold (or mindshare) before the HL7 V3.x steamroller flattens it (just as SOAP flattened the technically far superior CORBA, or HL7 V2.x flattened the almost infinitely technically more superior CORBAmed/HDTF specs) is if people can see openEHR in action, rather than just read the documents and run thought experiments with the ideas behind it in their head. Systems for managing EHR data will, due to the nature of the problem domain of shared health data, exhibit very strong network effects ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect ) - in other words, once the steamroller gets moving... Exposure to openEHR in-use would also, IMHO, do a great deal to enhance interest in it by health informatics standards bodies. My frustration is doubled because Thomas has repeatedly stated over teh course of several years that a) he has working openEHR engines/kernels and b) he intends to release them as open source. But b) has not (yet) happened, and people necessarily go with what's available. Tim C SPONSORED LINKS Software
Re: [openhealth] Re: article re IBM and others contributing open source epi and other
ivhalpc wrote: I wonder how this is all going to end and I fear it will end badly as in Nationalized medicine in the US when costs continue to climb out of control because of this kind of insanity. A bit off-topic, but huh? Why would Nationalised medicine be a bad ending? No system is perfect, but countries with such systems have demonstrably better health outcomes on a population basis at much lower overall cost to society - both rich countries and especially transitional and developing countries. Surely it is US model of privatised medicine which represents the bad ending which so many countries are heading towards? Tim C --- In openhealth@yahoogroups.com, David Forslund [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: IBM is part of one of the ONCHIT winners. Also IBM is participating in the HSSP effort. Sounds like normal operations for IBM. I've not found a technical reference to the IHII yet, although the ONCHIT required at least some of the response to be open source. Dave Forslund Nandalal Gunaratne wrote: This is another interesting paragraph A statement from IBM said the company will engage with industry leaders. But it did not mention whether it will coordinate efforts with the so-called Interoperability Consortium—a group of large IT vendors including IBM, Cisco Systems Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Oracle Corp.—who banded together to call for open standards to be used in any national health information network. YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS * Visit your group openhealth http://groups.yahoo.com/group/openhealth on the web. * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- You can search right from your browser? It's easy and it's free. See how. http://us.click.yahoo.com/_7bhrC/NGxNAA/yQLSAA/W4wwlB/TM ~- 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/
Re: [openhealth] Re: Nationalized Medicine was: article re IBM and others contributing open source epi and other
David Forslund wrote: Tim Churches wrote: Despite having one of the highest per-capita spends on healthcare in the world, the US ranks in the bottom half (and often right at the bottom) of all OECD countries on just about every health and health outcome measure, on a population basis. Sure, for wealthier people in the US who can afford good health insurance, health outcomes are excellent, but those people represent about 50% of the total population. The rest of the population have really very bad outcomes, so the overall results are remarkably poor given the overall expenditure. And even amongst the insured, the quality and nature of the care is very patchy, due to the incredibly fragmented nature of the US healthcare system. Where do you get your numbers? The percentage that isn't covered is much smaller, I believe, particularly since people who haven't applied and thus don't show up on a list are, in fact, covered. The quality of healthcare is patchy, but not necessarily based on income, but on locality. The healthcare insurance coverage is a figure I recall from a CDC Health People report, probably 5 years old or so - but it is at work. I'll look it up on Monday. The population-based health outcomes are documented in many places - again I'll look for a summary in some OECD reports on Monday. But most people I know would much rather have their operation in the US rather than going to another country for the same or similar procedure. I'm just guessing, but could that be because most people you know are Americans? The IT problem of rigid stove pipes of proprietary systems contributes to the problem but probably isn't the biggest contributing factor, in my opinion. I'm not sure how FOSS works in countries that have nationalized healthcare. Aren't their requirements that one use the national IT system? Or at least a small number of approved systems. That is certainly the way the UK NHS is heading, for better or worse. None (or very few) of those systems are FOSS, though. But typically even if health care is funded centrally by govt, administration is done on a regional basis and that often permits (for better or for worse) quite a lot of IT diversity. Even completely centrlist administrations try to avoid complete monocultures in IT, especially where commercial suppliers are involved, for fear of being price-gouged. Tim C SPONSORED LINKS Software distribution Salon software Medical software Software association Software jewelry Software deployment YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "openhealth" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
Re: [openhealth] Standards
Molly Cheah wrote: There doesn't seem to be control of its use. Information (unofficial) of its copy rights by WONCA is here http://www.ulb.ac.be/esp/wicc/copyright-en.html You can download the electronic version of ICPC2 from here. http://www.ulb.ac.be/esp/wicc/ceo.html When we started using it 6 years ago, we were told it can be freely used in research i.e. if you're developing your software. Then I was told by a former member of the WONCA Int'l Classification Committee to go ahead and use it. Frankly I don't think WONCA is concerned about charging for its use. The people who seem to want to charge is University of Sydney Family Medicine Research Centre (BEACH project) and the resultant extensions developed called ICPC2-Plus http://www.fmrc.org.au/ The ICPC-L mailing list is inactive and there is very little news from WONCA itself except for the BEACH project. I haven't been following the progress of the project but I know they've been very active. However, there doesn't seem to be a breakthrough in the use of ICPC2 even in Australian general practice which is a pity. Following is some more information on ICPC-2 and ICPC-2-Plus posted a while ago on the Australian general practice computing group mailing list by various people Tim C -Original Message- From: Tim Churches [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, July 11, 2005 3:21 PM To: Tolentino, Herman Subject: ICPC-2 Plus use in Australia I asked on the GPCG mailing list which systems used it here in Oz: Richard Hosking wrote: It is used in Medical Spectrum as far as I know Les Ferguson wrote: MedTech32 is using it in Australia, although their own website only names 5 products using it: http://www.fmrc.org.au/icpc2plus/origins.htm) Tony Lembke wrote: Genie is one. That's a start. Peter Machell wrote: 1. Totalcare Tim C Original Message Subject: Re: [GPCG_TALK] ICPC-2 Plus in use? Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2005 10:45:13 +1000 From: Graeme Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Graeme Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] References: [EMAIL PROTECTED] There are currently 25 EHR software developers holding licenses to include ICPC-2 Plus in their software products. There are installations at 400+ sites involving 1,600+GPs. Some are small with bespoke software in one or two sites. Some larger ones are listed on our website as mentioned by Les Ferguson. There are also an additional 10 licenses for research and administrative software and 5 development evaluation licenses to a total of 40 licenses. Off shore, Plus is being used in Sri Lanka and Macao and negotiations are proceeding in Fiji and the Philippines. We charge a one off fee for ICPC-2 which is remitted to Wonca to support international development of ICPC-2. We charge a small annual fee for ICPC-2 Plus to cover our support costs. Plus is a dynamic interface terminology with a 3 to 6 month update cycle with end users being updated in synchrony with the MIMS database updates. Wonca is currently negotiating a national licence for ICPC-2 with DoHA [Australian Govt Dept of Health and Ageing] which will cover the cost of ICPC-2. If the government provided ongoing support for supply and distribution, as it does does ICD10AM [AM=Australian Modification] (=$1M+ PA)then end user costs would be nil. If they supported open source then perhaps EHR software would also be free BUT someone would have to supply the support (as with Argus [open source secure medical comms software]). The University of Sydney is non profit and a registered charity with ATO tax exempt donation status. -- Dr Graeme Miller MB BS PhD FRACGP Medical Director Family Medicine Research Centre (A Collaborating Centre of the World Organisation of Family Doctors) University of Sydney Acacia House Westmead Hospital Westmead NSW 2145 Australia Medical Director General Practice Statistics and Classification Unit Australian Institute of Health and Welfare/ University of Sydney Phone +61 2 9845 8156 Mobile 0412 465 585 Fax +61 2 9845 8155 Fax (Home) +61 2 9890 1174 Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web http://www.fmrc.org.au Quoting Tim Churches [EMAIL PROTECTED]: It says here http://www.generalpractice.adelaideuni.org/content/res_content/current/vocab/2_02_4.pdf that ICPC-2 Plus is used in 38 clinical computing systems that are intended for General Practice and Community Health. It is also used for coding data in the BEACH Study and by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (National Health Survey). Its use in BEACH comes as no surprise, but its use in so many clinical software packages comes as a surprise. Can anyone on this list name any of those 38 clinical computing systems? Presumably that means 38 different clinical software packages, as opposed to 38 installations of a particular clinical software package? Tim C YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "openhealth" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [openhealth] Code Breakers on BBC World TV
Molly Cheah wrote: http://www.apdip.net/news/fossdoc A two-part documentary, “Code Breakers” will be aired on BBC World TV starting on 10 May 2006. Code Breakers investigates how poor countries are using FOSS applications for development, and includes stories and interviews from around the world. Free/Open Source Software (FOSS) contains ‘codes’ that can be used, copied, studied, modified and redistributed without restriction. These freedoms that are for all – developers and users – are highly significant to the developing world as FOSS increases access, ownership and control of information and communication technologies. A two-part documentary, “Code Breakers” will be aired on BBC World TV starting from 10 May 2006. Code Breakers investigates how poor countries are using FOSS applications for development, and includes stories and interviews from around the world. I caught part 1 of this programme, and found it very good and well-balanced and factually rather accurate (which is rare). Lots of airtime was given to a spokesperson from Microsoft Europe - he was made to seem warm and cuddly at first but as the programme progressed the makes skilfully revealed more and more of what Microsoft (and many other closed-source software companies) are really like. Part 2, next week, will focus on the real-life capabilities and real-life costs associated with FOSS. I hope that BBC chose to make this programme freely downloadable in teh near future. Tim C Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Protect your PC from spy ware with award winning anti spy technology. It's free. http://us.click.yahoo.com/97bhrC/LGxNAA/yQLSAA/W4wwlB/TM ~- 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/
Re: [openhealth] request for advice re electronic medical record
Tim Cook wrote: As soon as you start embedding complex data into relational structours you start losing the ability to recover information. In the SPECIFIC instance of OSCAR, the act of creating PDF's as data stores means there is no way to report back out of them so that data quality/ data integrity can be verified. Tim (or anyone else familiar with OSCAR), Can you elaborate on this? What sort of data is being stored solely in PDFs, presumably as BLOBs in a table, or in the filesystem with pointers to them in a table? I can conceive of several circumstances in which storage of PDFs would be quite OK eg scanned copies of paper correspondence, given that paper is still by far the most common modality for health communication, and copies of outgoing reports and correspondence. Even if such reports were generated entirely from data in the database, there may be a business or legal requirement to keep a snapshot of the data as it was when used to generate the report - and just storing a PDF of the generated report might be a convenient way of doing that. I've heard good reports about how functional OSCAR is in real-life practice from a person whose opinion I trust, although he did mention that the user interface wasn't entirely to his taste, but admitted that was a matter of personal preference. Thus your assertion that OSCAR may contain an FDF (Fundamental Design Flaw) is the source of some surprise. More details would be useful. I suspect that OSCAR may instead contain an FDDO (Fundamental Design Difference of Opinion), also known as an INDILT (I'd Never Design/Do It Like That). However, if it really is an FDF as you assert, then you need to provide more details and evidence to convince us and to help the OSCAR people and others to correct or avoid such design mistakes - if they are in fact mistakes. Tell us more about the circumstances in which OSCAR is using embedded PDFs as a primary data store. Tim C SPONSORED LINKS Software distribution Salon software Medical software Software association Software jewelry Software deployment YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "openhealth" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
Re: Openhealth Archives? (was) Re: RES: [openhealth] OSHCA - Notion of founding members
Bhaskar, KS wrote: The archive is in the Openhealth group Files area at Yahoogroups: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/openhealth/files/openhealth-list.tar.gz You will need a Yahoo id attached to the e-mail address with which you are subscribed to the openhealth list in order to access the archives. Of the 204 current members, 13 do not yet have Yahoo ids attached to their e-mail addresses. Caveat: the archived e-mail has not been scanned for malware. You should know how to protect yourself if you decide to download and access the archive. One of the first tasks post-registration of OSHCA will be refurbishment of the OSHCA Web site, and I think that a sub-task of that should be to create a (Google etc) searchable archive of the openhealth list based on the contents of the tarball to which Bhaskar refers. I volunteer to do that. The openhealth archive contains a lot of wisdom, as well as a lot of unfortunate and sometimes childish disputation (mea culpa), but there is no easy way to separate one from the other, alas. Putting the mailing list archives up can be a subproject of the OSHCA Web site project. Of course, all of the foregoing assumes that the openhealth list, or whomever the owner of the openhealth list archives is deemed to be, assents to this - OSHCA does not equal the openhealth lists nor vice-versa, although OSHCA business has historically be conducted on the openhealth list, so the two are closely related. But given that the mailing list archives are currently downloadable, I don't see any objection. An alternative strategy would be to make the archives searchable online but only by subscribers to the openhealth mailing list. That would add a lot of technical overhead and not achieve very much, IMO. Tim C On Fri, 2006-04-28 at 08:31 -0500, Joseph Dal Molin wrote: [KSB] ...snip... Which brings to mindis there a copy of the mail archives dating back to the formation of the openhealth list.I recall an earlier message asking Brian if the archive could be downloaded...did this come to pass? It will be very helpful to have the archive for many reasons, not to mention documenting the history of this community. SPONSORED LINKS Software distribution Salon software Medical software Software association Software jewelry Software deployment YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "openhealth" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
Re: [openhealth] Re: oshca inaugural meeting - constitution
Will Ross wrote: nandalal, from the perspective of a simple discussion at a face to face meeting, this is what is happening: we have a motion and a second to approve the 1.0 draft of the constitution. is there any further discussion? Although there was at least a two week opportunity to comment on the draft constitution prior to the meeting, with several messages from Molly reminding us of this fact. as a responsible member of the community i first evaluate whether or not it makes sense to initiate further discussion. deciding that it makes sense to raise the objection, i ask for the floor and state my concern so that my concern is noted as part of the process, even if i have every confidence that the motion will pass over my further discussion. Will, what *is* your concern with the constitution? I don't recall seeing it set out in any of your various posts in the last few days on the process for the inaugural meeting? then, the chair receives a motion to close the discussion, which is seconded and passed. does this disrupt the process or is it a legitimate part of the process? you decide. No, you have not done anything wrong. I agree that the process may be a bit confusing. In retrospect, I think the problem has been that the act of voting for the resolutions and the act of applying for foundation membership have been rolled into a single process. Arguably it would have been better to separate them. In a face-to-face Inaugural Meeting: (0) Prior to the inaugural meeting, some form of discussion forum would be convened to draft a proposed constitution and nominate initial protem office bearers. (1) At the inaugural meeting, some speeches would be made and some time-limited discussion of the resolutions and constitution would be allowed, then votes would be taken on the resolutions to form the organisation with the proposed constitution and officers, and if there were sufficient yeah votes, formation of the organisation could then proceed. I understand that at least seven people are required before an organisation can be registered in Malaysia. (2) If the resolutions were successful (that is the minimum number of yeah votes were received), then an invitation is issued to join the nascent organisation as founding members. An absolutely typical requirement for membership is that the prospective member; a) agrees with the goals of the organisation; and b) that the member agrees to abide by the constitution, rules and regulations of the organisation (in the case of OSHCA, there is only a constitution). Note that members do NOT have to agree with every last word of the constitution, but they must agree to abide by it. That is analogous with national or state law - I don't agree with many of the laws of Australia, but I accept that as a citizen and resident of Australia I must abide by them (often grudgingly, but I still do so). I also accept that I can try to change those laws with which I don't agree through a range of activities, from lobbying political representatives through to direct participation in the political process. The proposed OSHCA constitutions says: 5.1 Membership shall be open to persons interested in furthering the objects of OSHCA and shall consist of anyone who has accepted the premise of OSHCA’s Vision, Mission Statements and Principles by indicating such acceptance via OSHCA’s Internet Registration process. Also implicit in Section 7.4 are the provisions that members must *abide* by the constitution and not bring the organisation into disrepute. Nowhere does it say that members must agree with every last provision or letter of the constitution, just that they must abide by it. Members must, however, accept the OSHCA vision, mission statement and principles. (3) The minutes of the inaugural meeting, the constitution and other documents, the details of the initial office bearers and protem committee, and the details of all the founding members would then be submitted to the relevant national or state authority to allow the organisation to be formally registered. (4) Subsequent meetings would be called to organise elections after as suitable brief delay (to allow more members to join after some promotion and publicity about the organisation) for committee/board members and office bearers, and if members desire it, for modifications to the constitution. Non-members can lobby members to initiate or vote for motions to change the constitution, but can't do so themselves. It is fairly easy to see how the steps taken to found OSHCA as a formal organisation are analogous to the steps set out above, with the exception that the process of voting for or against the resolutions and the process of applying for membership have been conflated. I think that this collective mistake can be easily remedied by inviting a second round of founding membership applications using a form which makes the conditions for membership crystal clear. I think
Re: [openhealth] OSHCA inaugural meeting - important announcement
Thomas Beale wrote: doesn't the fact of paying the same number but in your own currency fix this? E.g. 50AUD, 50M$, 50Euro, 50rupiah, 50USD, 50yuan etc? Not really, because the granularity of currency units varies greatly between countries - consider, for example: 50 Japanese Yen is only US$0.42 50 Philippine pesos is US$0.96 50 Mexican pesos is US$4.53 50 Indonesian rupiah is US$0.00562895 But Tim seems to be saying start with e.g. 50AUD and convert this to all the other currencies? And then apply the HDI-based factor to reduce the amount for transitional and developing countries. My early concern (either way) would be the cost resources of accounting, $ transfer processing etc. Even if the supposed income covers the $-cost, will it realistically cover the human cost? Who will do all this? No, the membership fee for each of the three HDI classes which Molly proposes should be specified in only US dollars and Euros, or perhaps only in Malaysian ringgit (that would make a refreshing change!). Conversion of each member's local currency to the prescribed membership fee would be the responsibility of the member and/or the payment mechanism eg Paypal, or your credit/debit card provider. If I buy something on the Internet from a vendor in a foreign country, my expectation is that prices will be quoted in US dollars, Euros or in the vendor's local currency, not in Australian dollars. Tim C YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "openhealth" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
Re: [openhealth] OSHCA inaugural meeting - important announcement
Dr Molly Cheah wrote: What Tim's response is what I was eluding to. Here's the relevant article in the constitution. *6.1 - * The Committee shall prescribe a list of equitable membership entrance fee for different countries based on the UNDP’s 2005 Human Development Index (HDI) of the country. The entrance fee payable for membership shall be as follows (refer to List of Countries by HDI):- *6.1.1 - Ordinary member* Countries with High HDI USD10.00 Countries with Medium HDI USD5.00 Countries with Low HDI USD2.50 *6.1.2. - Associate member* 1. *- Civil Societies Professional bodies* Countries with High HDI USD20.00 Countries with Medium HDI USD10.00 Countries with Low HDI USD5.00 2. *- Corporations* Countries with High HDI USD100.00 Countries with Medium HDI USD50.00 Countries with Low HDI USD25.00 *6.2 - * There shall be no monthly subscription payable. However, members are encouraged to donate to specific projects as and when necessary. We've actually made the entrance fees very very affordable. These figures can be increased in subsequent amendments. However, as there is provision for donations and also special levies for projects, we can use those provisions for increasing contributions. OK. Sorry for suggesting membership fees rather higher than those which Molly proposes. I have forgotten the password for the Yahoo username which I used to subscribe to this list, so I have been unable to examine the draft constitution documents as yet - I have re-applied to join the list with a fresh username (no, there is no way to recover my password, since I used fake details to register which I no longer recall - I wouldn't trust Yahoo with any real personal details). Anyway, we can discuss the level of the fees further at the inaugural meeting - I think Molly's proposed fees are a bit too low. Tim C Tim.Churches wrote: Thomas Beale wrote: doesn't the fact of paying the same number but in your own currency fix this? E.g. 50AUD, 50M$, 50Euro, 50rupiah, 50USD, 50yuan etc? Not really, because the granularity of currency units varies greatly between countries - consider, for example: 50 Japanese Yen is only US$0.42 50 Philippine pesos is US$0.96 50 Mexican pesos is US$4.53 50 Indonesian rupiah is US$0.00562895 But Tim seems to be saying start with e.g. 50AUD and convert this to all the other currencies? And then apply the HDI-based factor to reduce the amount for transitional and developing countries. My early concern (either way) would be the cost resources of accounting, $ transfer processing etc. Even if the supposed income covers the $-cost, will it realistically cover the human cost? Who will do all this? No, the membership fee for each of the three HDI classes which Molly proposes should be specified in only US dollars and Euros, or perhaps only in Malaysian ringgit (that would make a refreshing change!). Conversion of each member's local currency to the prescribed membership fee would be the responsibility of the member and/or the payment mechanism eg Paypal, or your credit/debit card provider. If I buy something on the Internet from a vendor in a foreign country, my expectation is that prices will be quoted in US dollars, Euros or in the vendor's local currency, not in Australian dollars. Tim C Yahoo! Groups Links Yahoo! Groups Links 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/
Re: [openhealth] OSHCA inaugural meeting - important announcement
Tim.Churches wrote: OK. Sorry for suggesting membership fees rather higher than those which Molly proposes. I have forgotten the password for the Yahoo username which I used to subscribe to this list, so I have been unable to examine the draft constitution documents as yet - I have re-applied to join the list with a fresh username (no, there is no way to recover my password, since I used fake details to register which I no longer recall - I wouldn't trust Yahoo with any real personal details). Ignore that - Molly has distributed copies of the draft constitution via direct mail to protem committee members - I'll read it now and stop making uninfomed comments serves me right for catching up on a week's worth of email in reverse order - always a mistake. Tim C 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/
Re: [openhealth] OSHCA inaugural meeting - important announcement
Will Ross wrote: Some last minute suggestions. ARTICLE 1 - NAME The Organisation shall be known as Open Source Health Care Alliance, hereafter referred to as OSCHA, and shall be registered in Malaysia. That is better wording but not really a substantial change - not an essential modification from my perspective - but I doubt there would be objection to it. ARTICLE 3 - CHAPTERS Why is South America omitted? This collection of regions seems complex. The boundaries between regions is not obvious from the text. Why not use the same 6 global regions as FIFA? Latin America and the Carribean is on the current list. Latin America includes all of South America, doesn't it, together with Central America and Mexico? I suspect that Mexico has more in common with respect to opens source software in health with its neighbours to the south than it does with El Norte. ARTICLE 5 - MEMBERSHIP 5.2 - The Committee when rejecting an application SHALL provide a reason. Strictly speaking, shall should be used only for the first person singular or plural. The use of should (as the text currently reads) to convey obligation is acceptable and common usage - see http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/learnit/learnitv43.shtml - although I note that shall has a specific meaning of obligation in American formal usage, which it doesn't have in the formal English usage in most Commonwealth countries, although I note that teh use of shall throughout the proposed constitution doesn't adhere to strict formal English usage. However, I think we are splitting hairs (but not infinitives) here. Shall we leave it as is? ARTICLE 8 - COMMITTEE 9.8 - In the event of the death or resignation of a member of the Committee, the Committee shall have the power to APPOINT any other member of OSHCA to fill the vacancy until the next annual general meeting, but the member shall have the right to decline to be appointed to the Committee without resigning from OSHCA. I think that co-opt (in the current text) is being used to mean summary appointment. However there is no suggestion of coercion in any of the senses of co-option (or co-optation), are there? See http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?s=co-optgwp=13 Thus I feel that co-opt is quite acceptable. ARTICLE 11 - FINANCIAL PROVISIONS 11.2 - change any officer or servant of OSHCA to any officer of OSHCA or other volunteer Yes, servant is slightly archaic, but hey, I am still employed as a public servant (touch forelock, genuflect). Perhaps we might leave it as is, m'lud? ARTICLE 14 - INTERPRETATION 14.2 -- (improved wording) Except when contrary to or inconsistent with a policy previously established by a general meeting, decisions of the Committee shall be binding on all members of OSHCA unless or until countermanded by a resolution at a general meeting. Yes, that's better. There is a typo in the version 7 draft to me by Molly on 20/4 - there should be they. When fixing that, might as well change to Will's suggested text above. ARTICLE 16 - PROHIBITIONS 16.4 - I don't understand this. Are Malaysian students who are over 21 prohibited from joining OSHCA unless they have prior written approval from the University? Presumably all the rules in this section are required to meet some slightly idiosyncratic Malayasian legal requirements - every country has its own peculiarities (for example, the gambling game of two-up is illegal in Australia except on 25th April - true! - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-up However, paragraph 16.1 does prohibit the playing of all video games on OSHCA premises. Molly, that means you can't play mahjong on your laptop. ARTICLE 17 - AMENDMENTS I would like to see a requirement that the exact wording of any constitutional amendment must circulated ahead of a meeting. I fear the opportunity for the general meeting to compose and pass a constitutional amendment without prior circulation to the larger membership. Paragraphs 8.4 and 8.7 both require that agenda for annual and extraordinary general meetings be circulated 14 days prior to each meeting. Thus it would not be possible to effect a change to the constitution without two weeks notice of it being placed on the agenda. I don't think that it necessary to specify that the exact wording be circulated beforehand - that would be usual in any case, and would be demanded by members if it were not. The main thing is that completely ad hoc, spur-of-the-moment changes to the constitution will not be possible. Clearly, the Chair of the general meetings should not permit something as fundamental as a constitutional change to be conducted as unannounced Any other business. Tim C On Apr 21, 2006, at 10:07 AM, Molly Cheah wrote: Hi everyone, I would like to announce the following: 1) 25th April 2006 will be the OSHCA Inaugural Meeting Day. The form for participating in the inaugural meeting will be uploaded to the
Re: [openhealth] Re: Community Health Information Tracking System www.chits.info
David Forslund wrote: Alvin, We had exactly this approach with the OMG HDTF (aka corbamed) in the late 90's. There are standards there which do exactly this (long before people thought about doing web services). In addition, this is now being revisited with the HSSP joint effort of HL7 and the OMG (hssp.wikispaces.org). Since there are specifications for this type of integration, I would hope people would pay attention to at least learn from them in later versions of such standards. The HSSP effort is and all are invited to participate. The only open source system I'm aware of that has tried to follow this pattern is the OpenEMed software :-) What is the glue that is used in CHITS? If all open source systems glue stuff together differently, it isn't all that much better than proprietary systems although it might be more discoverable. Our entire philosophy with OpenEMed is to have well defined interfaces that define component behavior so that systems can interoperate easily. This was proven to work very well at HIMSS in 1998, where a number of commercial products worked out of the box without any prior configuration. Alvin and Herman can give far more informed answers on CHITS, but lack of information has never stopped me from venturing an opinion... Looking at the documentation for CHITS, it seems that the glue in CHITS is a set of specifications for writing plug-in modules in PHP. Although that gets one only so far, I think it is a very appropriate place to start given the immediate goals of CHITS - it is intended for deployment in community health clinics in developing countries. Note the list of pre-requisites for a CHITS installation in a clinic: ...a telephone connection is desirable but optional... (that's a telephone for voice communications, not computer communications). That doesn't mean that attention should not be paid to interoperability, but worrying about which standard to use for a network-based service-oriented architecture (SOA) comes a fair way down the list when writing software intended for such settings. Of more relevance is interoperability between applications on the same server (which is likely to be the only server in the clinic, without any persistent network connections to any other server anywhere else - at best an intermittent dial-up connection). Thus starting with a plug-in framework for the software implementation language, as the CHITS people have done, seems a reasonable place to start. Interoperability with other software on the same server can then be achieved in a myriad of ways, such as passing around data extracts in CSV files, or directly reading data from the MySQL database which CHITS uses. Sure, proper APIs and other callable interfaces are desirable, and XML-RPC can be used for this, but the reality is that the interfaces are likely to be ad hoc and app-to-app within the confines of a single server. Not perfect or ideal, but surprisingly effective and easy to do. The effort of quickly creating an app-to-app ad hoc interface using XML-RPC within the confines of a single server is often a lot less than trying to read and comply with far more complex interface specifications and standards. None of that is to say that interoperability standards are not important, but when you only have a single server working in isolation in a single clinic, or at best having a dial-up modem link to the Internet now-and-then (eg when it is not raining, when moisture causes so much noise in the lines due to battery effetcts in the telephone terminal connections that a modem connections are impossible...), then it is highly localised interoperability that really counts. Tim C alvinbmarcelo wrote: Thanks Nandalal. I was wondering: whatever happened to the old discussions about making interchangeable health software objects (rather than large bulky applications). That was at a time when XML was just revving up and web services was in its infancy. Tom Beale had a lot to share about GEHR, artifacts and the like. I thought that was interesting. To some extent, we implemented the same concept in CHITS but we would hardly call it standard. (It takes a global community to create a standard?) Does OSHCA have a framework of some sort for this kind of health software object interchange? That's where gap is most felt in the industry and where openness would be of most value. I admire MirrorMed's 'gluing' stuff together. That was the kind of cooperation I had expected from OSHCA 'products' before. And that's where FOSS is strong and gains an edge over proprietary products. --- In openhealth@yahoogroups.com, Nandalal Gunaratne [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: alvinbmarcelo [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This looks like a very good system. Congratulations! I will try this and introduce it to my colleagues in community health. Maybe some of them are already aware of it.
Re: [openhealth] MirrorMed Highlights FOSS in Action
Tim.Churches wrote: Nandalal Gunaratne wrote: It is indeed most encouraging to see such developments. When I clicked the screenshots i was taken to the Microsoft web site!!! Your link should be http://www.mirrormed.org/fb/ Not http://http//www.mirrormed.org/fb/ This seems to be a peculiarity of Firefox. Other browsers (correctly) report an error with the above URL, whereas Firefox does indeed take you to the Microsoft Web site. Why, I wonder? Here is the explanation: http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/user/view/cs_msg/43360 That leads to a whole genre of single word, non-deterministic URLS in Firefox. Try these (in Firefox, results will be disappointing elsewhere): http://mirrormed http://gnumed http://oshca http://linuxmednews http://netepi Tim C 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/
Re: [openhealth] MirrorMed Highlights FOSS in Action
Tim.Churches wrote: Nandalal Gunaratne wrote: Tim.Churches [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tim, All the following work with Firefox - in that i am taken to the correct URL! What were you trying to point out here? I was pointing out that all of the following work in Firefox, and that you are taken to the correct Web sites. None of the following are, in fact, valid URLs eg mirrormed is NOT a domain name. Thus it is unexpected behaviour, but explicable because Firefox just sends invalid URLs to Google and redirects to the the top link which Google returns. Thus, these also work as pseudo-URLs in Firefox: mirrormed gnumed oshca nandalal and so on. Since it is Easter, you should also try typing about:mozilla as a URL in Firefox (or Mozilla). Tim C That leads to a whole genre of single word, non-deterministic URLS in Firefox. Try these (in Firefox, results will be disappointing elsewhere): http://mirrormed http://gnumed http://oshca http://linuxmednews http://netepi Tim C SPONSORED LINKS Software distribution http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=msk=Software+distributionw1=Software+distributionw2=Salon+softwarew3=Medical+softwarew4=Software+associationw5=Software+jewelryw6=Software+deploymentc=6s=142.sig=XcuzZXUhhqAa4nls1QYuCg Salon software http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=msk=Salon+softwarew1=Software+distributionw2=Salon+softwarew3=Medical+softwarew4=Software+associationw5=Software+jewelryw6=Software+deploymentc=6s=142.sig=CW98GQRF3_rWnTxU62jsdA Medical software http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=msk=Medical+softwarew1=Software+distributionw2=Salon+softwarew3=Medical+softwarew4=Software+associationw5=Software+jewelryw6=Software+deploymentc=6s=142.sig=86bMQqtlpuDBvFzrRcQApw Software association http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=msk=Software+associationw1=Software+distributionw2=Salon+softwarew3=Medical+softwarew4=Software+associationw5=Software+jewelryw6=Software+deploymentc=6s=142.sig=YhKUbszKHqjPXh21AbTSwg Software jewelry http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=msk=Software+jewelryw1=Software+distributionw2=Salon+softwarew3=Medical+softwarew4=Software+associationw5=Software+jewelryw6=Software+deploymentc=6s=142.sig=9EWe0V3gtVyQaCqOgchvlw Software deployment http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=msk=Software+deploymentw1=Software+distributionw2=Salon+softwarew3=Medical+softwarew4=Software+associationw5=Software+jewelryw6=Software+deploymentc=6s=142.sig=VNvgzp250z70B2EFV3JYqg YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS * Visit your group openhealth http://groups.yahoo.com/group/openhealth on the web. * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/. 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/
Re: [openhealth] Digest Number 176
Irving Buchbinder wrote:
A thought about storage for Minoru or upcomming back storage needs:
I can't speak for each project, however, the FreeMED Software Foundation
would be willing to MIRROR such archives, indeed host that sort of activity.
I'm sure we can find groups/Open Source works who will also be willing to
put forward some server/disk time to keep the list operational.
Horst herb has also indicated his willingness to host mail archives on
his servers. Adhering to the LOCKSS (lots of copies keeps stuff safe)
principle, I see no objection to there being online multiple archives.
Although there is a lot of embarrassing disputation in the openhealth
archives, there is also a great deal of high quality and interesting
discussion of both technical and sociopolitical matters.
The key matter is to sanitise the email addresses so as to render the
archives less of a magnet for spam address harvesters. It's too later
for such concerns with respect to my email addresses - I get an
avalanche of spam, and rely on spam filters (which work well enough that
I hardly bothered by it). However, I can appreciate why others might not
want their email addresses easily harvestable in the archive.
Transforming email addresses is rather easy - a simple regular
expression with find them. The question is, should they be removed
entirely or just changed to something like tim [dot] churches {at}
gmail [dot] com? If they are removed entirely, many messages will then
be rendered effectively anonymous in the archive, because not everyone's
email client supplies a name when sending mail.
The popular MHonArc mail archiving programme has options for email
address obfuscation built-in, I think - http://www.mhonarc.org/
Although I monitor the lists regularly, I'm not a big contributor. I've many
times thanked Brian for his efforts when FreeMED was still a fledgling
project, helping us to get our wings.
Yes. Brian, what is involved in packaging up the openhealth mail
archives and sending them to a one or more alternative archive hosts?
Can a compressed tarball be made easily?
Please let us/me know what we can do to make this happen. I've never been a
fan of Yahoo mailing because of its twitchy policies regarding back storage
and such. Its not at ALL open source nor does its corporate nature seem
disposed in that way.
Yes, if the current list is to remain on Yahoo, there is a good case for
setting up an independent searchable archive of it. Am I correct in
thinking that you need to actually sign in to Yahoo to be able to search
and browse the archives of the *current* openhealth mailing list? If so,
that is, I think, unfortunate and some form of openly accessible mirror
archive needs to be established.
Tim C
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/
Re: [openhealth] Openhealth mailing list
Brian Bray wrote: Thanks for the welcome, Bhaskar, and also the warm welcome (in every sense of the word) I've received from many others. Also, thank you for creating this list. The list software at minoru-development.com was and is broken- you took the right step to keep this incredible community conversation going. I have no intention of fixing the old list. Having two lists is confusing and creates the appearance of division where none exists. Accordingly, I'll be closing down the openhealth mailing list on the minoru site in about a week. Are there any archives of the old list which need to be preserved for posterity? Are they all available elsewhere? If not, I am sure Horst herb would be happy to host teh archives on his servers. Tim C 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/
Re: [openhealth] Important announcement and oshca update
Dr Molly Cheah wrote: Is OSCHA a religious organization or an independent world-wide technological organization accessible to everyone regardless of religious conviction? (Tim, you're not making any sense with your star and crescent comment). I think Tim was just being cheeky :). Yes, just stirring the pot... sorry, it is my nature to do so. And, what I'm suggesting is that you start with a U.S. incorporation. Then incorporate elsewhere. What is below is point/counter-point. And, it's not talking about suitability based on religion, the people or any other facet other than legal. But why start of with a US incorporation? Past discussions clearly indicate that the membership do not want a US dominated OSHCA. So, let me boil this down to simple terms: 1. Legal protections: U.S. incorporation means that as a U.S. company, OSHCA has the same rights as an individual. Intellectual property rights and agreements are upheld. In other countries, especially ones with new regimes, this might not be the case. U.S. subsidiaries running in non-U.S. countries would work just fine and be stabilized by the U.S. based parent. I don't agree that US incorporation offers more legal protection than Malaysia which are also signatories to International Conventions and legal frameworks and taking them seriously. Under the law OSHCA will be a legal entity with rights to all provisions under the relevent acts. Incidently Malaysia is not a new regime and we got our independence from the British in 1957. Before that we were colonized by the Portugese, then the Dutch and then the British. Stabilized by US based parent? How so? 2. Repatriation of capital: As OSCHA earns fees, receives donations, pays taxes, etc... it's much more straightforward in the U.S. I believe. The tax burden on a non-profit like OSHCA would be minimal or non-existent. I plan to apply for tax-exempt status, in addition to the non-profit status which will automatically be given. That means that donors to OSHCA do not pay taxation on their donations to OSHCA and OSHCA does not have to pay tax on the donations received. There is no control on the repatriation of monies earned in Malaysia. 3. Political stability: In politically less-stable countries (e.g. Malaysia, Taiwan, Mexico, South Africa, Haiti, etc..) when regimes change so does the law - you can find your corporation and all its assets suddenly owned by someone else. I didn't know that Malaysia is politically unstable and I don't know of any assets that had been suddenly owned by someone else. But I'm amazed by your perceptions of Malaysia. I would be happy to play host and invite you to come and see Malaysia. If anything, the political system in Malaysia might be a little bit too stable... Um, no. 4. Government funding: incorporating in a country because it looks like there's government funding is a bad idea. You need a much harder offer than that. What are the incentive programs, specifically that the other government offers? Who, specifically in the government, is offering them? I've not mentioned about Govt funding. I did say that it would be easier to get funding for OSHCA activities from the likes of organisations like UNDP, IDRC, CIDA, SIDA etc. Maybe I failed to market or hard sell Malaysia for our purpose. As for incentive programmes and other Govt offers, it is obvious that you are not aware of the Malaysian Govt's Policy on Open Source, incentives related to ICT companies and projects. There are too many to enumerate here. I did a google search on Malaysia's incentives for ICT and they're all there. However, after all these efforts I wonder if the members of OSHCA are capable to make a difference to push the open source agenda in health care especially in the developing world. I must quality that this is my main interest - the developing world that needs help. I think it is fair to say that Molly has comprehensively demolished Richard's arguments and hopefully dispelled a little of Richard's ignorance about Malaysia (and the world in general beyond the US). Richard, feel free to incorporate whatever organisation that you like in the US, as long as you don't call it OSHCA, because that name and meme has been well and truly claimed by a long-standing international group of like-minded people who are now about to embark on a second (and certain to be successful this time) attempt at incorporation - in Malaysia in the first instances, through the good offices of Molly, and elsewhere if and when the need arises. But baby steps first: incorporate in Malaysia. Please proceed as planned, Molly. Tim C Molly Cheah wrote: I was born in Malaysia and lived through the period where we obtained independance from the British and from whom our legal framework was adopted. Just wondering what are the concerns of Richard and David on the legal
Re: [openhealth] Important announcement and oshca update
David Forslund wrote: Molly, Incorporating OSHCA in the US doesn't necessarily imply US domination. No, but US citizens need to be sensitive to the negative feelings towards the US which are present and growing in many countries around the world. Whether this antipathy towards the US is justified depends a great deal on one's standpoint - and I don't think we should debate it here - but it definitely exists and is remarkably pervasive - in some countries it is the dominant attitude, in others, it is present in a sizeable minority of the population. Given these attitudes to the US, incorporation of an international organisation in the US may be perceived negatively by some would-be participants in OSHCA, and certainly by many potential funding or collaborating bodies, such as the WSIS. Thus it *is* a practical consideration. I did not hear an answer to my question about the possible necessity of incorporating OSHCA in multiple countries. Yes, that may be necessary, but OSHCA should cross that bridge if and when it comes to it. There is no need for immediate, simultaneous incorporation in many countries in the first instance. If the need for incorporation elsewhere becomes apparent, then the necessary steps can be taken. But let OSHCA walk before forcing it to run a cross-country race. I didn't understand Tim C.'s comment about there not being freedom of political expression in Malaysia. I was alluding to the case of Anwar Ibrahim - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_Ibrahim - amongst others. But that was a while ago now, and Mahathir has retired. This happens in many democracies from time to time - see for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mccarthyism How does that fit with a form of democracy? I just read this week in a Australian paper about a government official threatening to jail non-Muslims if they were perceived as insulting Islam. These types of things concern me if an international body is to be organized in such a country. Perhaps this information is totally erroneous? Such things are often misreported. However, OSHCA is unlikely to ever make insulting comments about Islam or any other religion for that matter. In fact, the only religious topics which might be discussed are emacs vs vi or Java vs Python or Ruby. Thus I can't see why such things are of concern with respect to where OSHCA is incorporated. Note that incorporation of OSHCA in Malaysia or anywhere else has no impact on your freedom of speech as an individual, even if you are also a member of OSHCA. Tim C 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/
Re: [openhealth] sumultaneous registrations and registration form
Richard Schilling wrote: The protem committee taking four years to get this far is a pretty clear indication that they've undermined themselves. No, Richard. There have been two, quite distinct pro tempore OSHCA committees. The first one, of which I was a member, was working towards incorporation of OSHCA in Canada, then Australia, then Canada again, over the course of about 18 months or two years. Various people, whom I shall not name, started to complain (probably with some justification) about the slow progress (for part of which I was responsible), and others began to see conspiracies and dictatorial tendencies in the way OSHCA was being organised. Suffice to say that the barrage of criticism resulted in a large proportion of the first pro temporore organising committee resigning. Nothing then happened for at least a year, perhaps 18 months - there was no further discussion of OSHCA or its incorporation. Then Molly, to her immense credit, decided to start afresh - and that was only a month or two ago. So things are moving pretty quickly for a disparate, international group of people in different time zones and communicating only by email. Tim C Molly Cheah wrote: Richard, I would appreciate it if you allow the protem committee to make the decisions on OSHCA since the community has given us the mandate to resurrect OSHCA. Otherwise I feel that you're undermining our efforts. I don't understand why suddenly you're in such a hurry. Like many others, Tim Cook, Bhaskar etc had expressed earlier there can be chapters/branches etc formed later. The discussions and sentiments expressed here will certainly be taken into consideration by the protem committee. I would like to appeal to you not to complicate the matter further otherwise your intentions may be misconstrued. Please let me complete my job and my responsibility to the community. I did not think that my intention to update the community with information would lead to a kind of upstaging the protem committee's efforts. If you proceed to register OSHCA it will be tantamount to acting in bad faith, as I had been negotiating with Brian on behalf of the community. Molly Richard Schilling wrote: Since OSCHA is an internationl body we can register siultaneously, and choose the base to be anywhere. Is the incorporation in Malaysia going to be doing business or just representing FOSS industry interests? Depending on the answer to that here are our choices here in the U.S. that I can pursue now: Trade association — Definition. trade associations don't do business but exist to exert influence on a market. This seems to me the best fit for OSCHA if the organization does not intend to own things like copyrighted software. Gets around the international intellectual property issues on software for OSCHA as well. Trade association, as that term is used here means a membership organization of persons engaging in a similar or related line of commerce, organized to promote and improve business conditions in that line of commerce and not to engage in a regular business of a kind ordinarily carried on for profit and for which no part of net earnings inures to the benefit of any member. Non-Profit Corporation - Definition. Non-Profit Corporations conduct business (e.g. provide products and services) and can also have an influencing effect. A nonprofit corporation is an organization formed as a corporation for purposes other than generating a profit, and in which no part of the organization's income is distributed to its directors or officers. Nonprofits are formed pursuant to state law, often under the Revised Model Non-Profit Corporation Act (1986). A nonprofit can be a church or church association, school, charity, medical provider, legal aid society, volunteer service organization, professional association, research institute, museum, or in some cases a sports association. Being formed with the state as a nonprofit corporation does not automatically provide an organization with tax-exempt status. Nonprofits must apply for tax-exempt status at the federal and sometimes at the state level. Yahoo! Groups Links Yahoo! Groups Links Yahoo! Groups Links 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/
Re: [openhealth] Important announcement and oshca update
Thomas Beale wrote: Tim.Churches wrote: David Forslund wrote: Molly, Incorporating OSHCA in the US doesn't necessarily imply US domination. No, but US citizens need to be sensitive to the negative feelings towards the US which are present and growing in many countries around the world. Whether this antipathy towards the US is justified depends a great deal on one's standpoint - and I don't think we should debate it here - but it definitely exists and is remarkably pervasive - in some countries it is the dominant attitude, in others, it is present in a sizeable minority of the population. Come on everyone, we need action not endless debate... There are some relatively simple things to be done, someone who currently has the energy and wherewithall to do it (Molly); we should be looking at the least pain route to getting the organisation going (which as far as I can tell is: set it up in Malaysia, in the first instance). We can't base that thinking on the complexities of geopolitics (and I am the first to agree that the world situation is a concern of the first order)... Thomas, I think that it important to discuss this issue (where OSHCA is to be incorporated in the first instance), up to a point. I don't think that the debate that has occurred has delayed Molly's work on incorporation - it is, to use a much abused term, orthogonal to that. Also, OSHCA will, as an advocacy group with international scope, need to interact with many different organisations, and here geo[socio]political considerations do play a part. Far from merely being a convenient and relatively cheap location to do business, incorporation of OSHCA in Malaysia sends strong, positive signals to a wide range of people and organisations in a way that incorporation in the US, Australia, Canada, or the EU would not. The fact is that there is genuine concern in many countries about US (and to a lesser but real extent, EU) cultural, economic and technological (and, um, military) hegemony, influence or encroachment. Thus there are strong benefits in OSHCA, as an international organisation, having its incorporated base in Malaysia, which: a) is a developing/transitional country: b) has a long history of and reputation for non-alignment; c) has a reputation for promoting and fostering the use and development of technology, especially information technology, as a means of accelerating appropriate economic and social development; d) is a secular, religiously-tolerant and -moderate state which has an association with the Islamic faith. Some or all of these these attributes are likely to matter to the people with whom OSHCA wishes to engage (or ought to wish to engage) in developing and transitional countries. Wayne is absolutely correct: the main game for free open source health software is in the poorer majority of the world. In rich, developed countries, open source software in health is important, but realistically it is not going to become the dominant source of deployed health information systems in those countries in the next decade or two. But that is not the case in developing and transitional countries, where FLOSS has the real potential to become a or the major provider of health informatics infrastructure and systems. So, Malaysia does matter, but yes, let's let Molly get on with it. However, OSHCA has a much more focussed agenda, a reasonably clear mission, and we need to be thinking about what comes after the organisation is running (hopefully a matter of weeks, not years!), not obsessing about where it should be incorporated, or the relative evils of Malaysian injustices v US injustices. I think the point that I was attempting to make is that no country is beyond criticism in some important respect, and thus there is no perfect home base for OSHCA. The latter may be relevant to how we live our lives, but I really doubt that it has any practical impact on just getting the horse called OSCHA out the gate. I disagree - as expounded above, I feel that place of incorporation will have a bearing on teh success of OSHCA as an international adovocy body for FLOSS in health. Our main strengths are the individuals here, not the countries they come from. Sure, but external perceptions of OSHCA will not primarily based on the personal characteristics of its members or Board. Perceptions will be based on published documents and statements of principal, on the countries of origin of its Board/steering committee and its members (hence the desire to have one Board member of steering committee member from each continent/region), and on the location of its home base. Many of us here have worked in some kind of advocate or champion mode in the e-Health arena; Molly is doing this right now - what she doesn't need is more obstacles and buts from the debating gallery; she needs support and resources. Yup. And for many, many reasons, Molly is the perfect person to taking the running
Re: [openhealth] Important announcement and oshca update
Richard Schilling wrote: If I were involved in the incorporation (which I can do, by the way in a day) I would object to doing it in Malaysia. I would do it in the U.S. first. The protections offered a U.S. corporation might be much greater than in Malaysia. Glad that you have compared US and Malaysian corporate law. Personally I think it is great that OSHCA will finally be incorporated, and given the current Zeitgeist in many rich countries, that it will be incorporated under a flag bearing the crescent and star. Tim C Molly Cheah wrote: Dear all, I am happy to annouce that the transfer of the domain name oshca.org from Brian had been completed. Brian is in the process of creating and signing a document disclaiming rights to the OSHCA trademark. Thank you Brian for these initiatives. I understand that Brian will also make a decision with regards to the fate of the openhealth lists on Minoru and Yahoo by this weekend. I'll leave that to Brian to make that annoucement. As for the status of OSHCA, the protem committee members (volunteers expressed on the list as well as those agreed to serve when requested) are as follows: Joseph dal Molin (Canada/US) Adrian Midgley (UK/Europe) Thomas Beale (Australia/Pacific islands) Nandalal Gunaratne (Sri Lanka/Asia) Molly Cheah (Malaysia/Asia) I hope to keep the protem committee small for quick decision making but hope to add 2 more names, preferably from South America and Africa/Middle East by the time we submit the incorporation documents for registration. Please volunteer. These numbers and representation structure can change after incorporation if members wish so. I don't know how much discussion should go into the incorporation process or how much time should be alotted. My proposed timeline for completion of incorporation is 3 months from 15th April 2006 - tentative date for submission of papers. We should have OSHCA ressurrected by 15th July 2006, barring unforseen circumstances. Here are my assumptions in order to realise this initiative: 1. Provisions in the constitution/MA of OSHCA is a living document and can be changed by members' majority wishes. For purpose of incorporation, we will take into consideration past discussions (2002-2004) and make the provisions as general and flexible as possible to meet incorporation requirements. 2. There is no objection to incorporate ina developing country like Malaysia. There will be provisions for setting up geographical sections/branches etc with as much de-centralization as possible. 3.The Vision, Mission Statements, Principles and Activities as discussed earlier this year will be included in the incorporation papers. Any suggestion of changes posted on the Yahoo list by 15th April will be taken into consideration by the protem committee for incorporation. Procedures will be provided for amendments to be made after incorporation. 4. Elections for new committee members can take place immediately after incorporation. Provision will be made for the protem committee to stay on for a defined number of months to attend to teething issues that may arise. 5. The yahoo list will continue to discuss organising the 1st post-incorporation OSHCA meeting scheduled for later part of 2006 to kick-start/launch OSHCA. This may not be in the form of a full conference. I would like to see presentations of current status of open source healthcare solutions/applicaions. It should also provide the opportunity to include indepth discussions on planning for the future of OSHCA so that its resurrection becomes meaningful - reflecting more than just a community of open source enthusiasts in health care. If there are no other bidders, I plan to get funding to do this in Malaysia. Naturally it may be on a modest scale. Please feel free to propose ideas.The protem committee will work on an action plan and invite volunteers to help. Molly Yahoo! Groups Links YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS * Visit your group openhealth http://groups.yahoo.com/group/openhealth on the web. * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/. 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/
Re: [openhealth] Important announcement and oshca update
David Forslund wrote: There may be legal protection, etc in Malaysia. Not may be, there definitely is. As Molly said, Malaysian law was originally based on British law - it is now distinct from it, but rest assured that there is rule of civil law in Malaysia. There is also corruption and political influence over the courts, but I would not like to have to say whether there is more or less such corruption in Malaysia than in the US or other countries. However, for a tiny, nascent organisation like OSHCA, none of this is relevant. Suffice to say that Malaysian corporate law should be more than adequate for OSHCA's purposes. That's correct, isn't it Molly? We are more familiar with the situation in the US. Well, yes. I am more familiar with Australian law. But that doesn't mean that I regard the legal regimes in every other country with suspicion. It is more of a question of comparing what is required and what you can do with a corporation in Malaysia than in the US. The decision shouldn't be made on political grounds but on technical grounds, in my opinion. Given what OSHCA hopes to achieve - things like engaging with UN-sponsored initiatives such as WSIS and perhaps with national and international development agencies - I think that incorporation in Malaysia (or some other non-aligned developing or transitional country) is a *much* more sound choice, from a political perspective, than incorporation in the US (or other G8 or other rich nations, but particularly the US, particularly at the moment). Tim C Molly Cheah wrote: I was born in Malaysia and lived through the period where we obtained independance from the British and from whom our legal framework was adopted. Just wondering what are the concerns of Richard and David on the legal protection for OSHCA. Can you elaborate rather than make a comment that imply there isn't legal protection. Incidently we don't have the equivalence of Guantanano Bay in Malaysia. Molly Joseph Dal Molin wrote: Legal protection in the context of an organization like OSHCA is IMHO not a major concern. What is more important is how the countries laws influence governance. David Forslund wrote: I don't understand why this is good or even relevant. What should matter is the legal protection provided by the incorporation in the various countries participating, which I think was Richard's point. Dave Forslund Yahoo! Groups Links YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS * Visit your group openhealth http://groups.yahoo.com/group/openhealth on the web. * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/. 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/
Re: [openhealth] Re: CCHIT biased towards proprietary software?
Greg Woodhouse wrote: Every software developer writes unit tests, In your dreams! but the unit test typically end up being files on their hard drives at some point. Making unit tests into artifacts is a relatively recent phenomenon, Agreed, but I had recent releases of open source software in mind. and even more so is the idea of writing test cases before you code (one of the tents of XP). If unit tests are included in the distribution, so much the better! But I wouldn't overstate the value of these tests. They might tell you that the nails were driven in all the way, or that current flows to the electric lights, but they're not going to tell you whether or not a building is structurally sound. Hence your reference to the tents of eXtreme Programming? Tim C --- Tim.Churches [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: - Wayne Wilson wrote: Finally if software is developed with unit test capabilities, it is quite easy to repeat unit tests upon software modification, so this does not become much of a burden either. Indeed. My approach these days when considering open source software components for serious use is to look for the unit tests (and for functional and integration tests too). If there are no unit tests, it indicates that the code was written on a wing-and-a-prayer basis and is best avoided. Tim C === Gregory Woodhouse [EMAIL PROTECTED] It is foolish to answer a question that you do not understand. --G. Polya (How to Solve It) SPONSORED LINKS Software distribution http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=msk=Software+distributionw1=Software+distributionw2=Salon+softwarew3=Medical+softwarew4=Software+associationw5=Software+jewelryw6=Software+deploymentc=6s=142.sig=XcuzZXUhhqAa4nls1QYuCg Salon software http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=msk=Salon+softwarew1=Software+distributionw2=Salon+softwarew3=Medical+softwarew4=Software+associationw5=Software+jewelryw6=Software+deploymentc=6s=142.sig=CW98GQRF3_rWnTxU62jsdA Medical software http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=msk=Medical+softwarew1=Software+distributionw2=Salon+softwarew3=Medical+softwarew4=Software+associationw5=Software+jewelryw6=Software+deploymentc=6s=142.sig=86bMQqtlpuDBvFzrRcQApw Software association http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=msk=Software+associationw1=Software+distributionw2=Salon+softwarew3=Medical+softwarew4=Software+associationw5=Software+jewelryw6=Software+deploymentc=6s=142.sig=YhKUbszKHqjPXh21AbTSwg Software jewelry http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=msk=Software+jewelryw1=Software+distributionw2=Salon+softwarew3=Medical+softwarew4=Software+associationw5=Software+jewelryw6=Software+deploymentc=6s=142.sig=9EWe0V3gtVyQaCqOgchvlw Software deployment http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=msk=Software+deploymentw1=Software+distributionw2=Salon+softwarew3=Medical+softwarew4=Software+associationw5=Software+jewelryw6=Software+deploymentc=6s=142.sig=VNvgzp250z70B2EFV3JYqg YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS * Visit your group openhealth http://groups.yahoo.com/group/openhealth on the web. * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/. 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/
Re: [openhealth] CCHIT biased towards proprietary software??
Thomas Beale wrote: Rod Roark wrote: The point is, open source (as in Free Software) is NOT a business model. It's a method and end result of collaboration among users. I make good money at it only because some of those users are willing to pay me to do the techie work for them. if someone is paying you something, then there is a business model. It's better to be aware of what it is than pretend that it isn't there I repeat: NOBODY will pay thousands for certification of Free Software. They will use it because they already believe in it. If the accreditation process and procedures are transparent and do indeed show that anyone claiming to have an XYZ-compliant product really does have such, then it is in the interests of the users. Put yourself in the shoes of a purchaser (especially a health authority or government). Let's say you are interested in DICOM software. Let's say there are two products on the market that do what you want, but only one is certified. You find out about the certification process, you discover that the test cases are published as are the procedures for doing the certification. You know that the certified product correctly processes say 50 published test files, and does 65 other things described in the process. Finally, let's say that the prices are within 30% of each other. Which one do you buy? Test files?In fact, there is no reason why automated test scripts couldn't be used to demonstrate compliance with the criteria described by CCHIT - see http://www.cchit.org/publiccomment4.htm - but I get the feeling that those framing the criteria had human actors in mind with respect to their test scripts. I might be wrong. Either way, it would seem quite feasible for an open source project to publish documentation of how it meets the certification criteria in the documents on the above Web page. Tedious to compile such documentation, but still only person-weeks (or at worst one- o r two-person months)of work, I suspect, not person years. Split it up between five or six people and its doable without danger of inducing madness. If a project did that, then the CCHIT charge for certification ought to be minimal, if anything at all. Tim C 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/
Re: [openhealth] CCHIT biased towards proprietary software??
Gregory Woodhouse wrote: On Mar 25, 2006, at 5:01 PM, Joseph Dal Molin wrote: and...at the risk of stating the obvious there should be some mechanism for evaluating the certification authority and the criteria... Sadly, I don't know how many people are even thinking in those terms. What we are discussing here is software quality (meaning fitness for a particular purpose), and it may well be that people with the appropriate expertise are not well represented in this process. Worse, the current standard (in medicine, one might say standard of care) in this area is heavily biased towards testing and informal (if any) requirements definition. Formal methods, automated proof systems, rigorous specifications, and so forth are all thought of as rather esoteric or academic (purposely using what Guy L. Steele perceptively called horror quotes in his thesis!) I know I've written correctness proofs for no reason but to satisfy myself that an algorithm I developed was correct. It's not such a terrible thing. Perhaps medicine is an area where we ought to start thinking about setting aside industry standard practice and thinking in terms of more rigorous methods of validating softwares -- which, after all is used in patient care! Certainly formal quality assurance mechanisms for health-related software should be used where possible and reasonable, but it must also be remembered that the practice of medicine itself is, at worst, guided by a tradition of what seems to work as recorded in textbooks and handed down by traditional teaching, and at best by evidence based practice which relies on meta-analyses of observational studies which have all sorts of design and execution flaws, or on (hopefully double-blind) RCTs (randomised controlled trials) which typically have very limited generalisability to wider populations. Tim C 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/
Re: [openhealth] Of potential interest: Amazon S3
Tim.Churches wrote: Amazon S3 is not strictly open source software but may be of interest to open source software developers and end-users. ... So what could S3 be used for? ... 2) As a store-and-forward facility for the exchange of lab results or other health messages (in encrypted form, of course). By using strong encryption for the data being stored-and-forwarded, the fact that the secret access key for an S3 account would need to be shared between multiple parties is not an impediment. Billing for the usage of S3 for such shared data interchange might be an issue, but I think that the S3 billing records are in machine-readable format, so some additional mechanism for apportioning costs could be built - if the costs warranted that. Actually, Amazon offer another, free service directed at that: the Amazon Simple Queue Service - see the left-hand panel at http://aws.amazon.com - however, the Queue Service can only handle messages up to 4kb, which means it is not much use. Amazon S3, by contrast, can handle individual files up to 5GB, and as many of them as you want, which means it could be used for heavy-duty store-and-forward delivery of messages containing large payloads such as high-quality digitised radiographs and MRI scans and echocardiography or endoscopy movies and so on. Tim C 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/
Re: [openhealth] [Fwd: Re: [n-gaa] Is Open Source Good for Innovation?]
Thomas Beale wrote: Tim.Churches wrote: Why Wikipedia doesn't have one is a mystery to me. Why it is as good as it is (however good you think it is) is also a mystery. It is wrong to think of wikipedia as an open source/open content project. In fact, it is about 1 million separate open source/open content projects (that is, articles), each with their own project team. All the good projects (articles) have a small editorial team, often just one person, which really cares about them. If someone else makes a worthwhile contribution, it is allowed to stand. If someone else degrades the content, then the editorial team changes it back to its former state. Often content goes through many cycles of degradation and restoration, but the editorial team usually wins through sheer doggedness. And the overall, average direction of change across the 1 million articles is towards the better, although it is easy to find examples of articles which spiral down. But most get better. but as far as I know there is not even a signalling mechanism for the editor (how does she know she's the only one) to know about changes? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Watching_pages Where is the editorial group proclaimed? I made some additions once and never ran into any editorial mechanism. There is no proclaimed editorial group - but as I said, most good articles do have at least one person who really cares about the content of the article - often the person who wrote it originally. This editorial team is, as I said, self-appointed, unproclaimed and entirely de facto - it exerts influence by persistence and doggedness in correcting what it feels are retrograde changes to each article. And yes, it is not uncommon for there to be multiple editorial teams (often just different individuals) at war over an article - hence the conflict resolution procedures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_resolution However, if wikipedia articles were not based on the wiki-wiki roll-back paradigm, the whole thing would collapse. As it is, the self-appointed editorial team for each article can roll back changes with a few clicks of the mouse. Self-appointed? Yes, just like the way in which leaders of almost all open source software projects are self-appointed. Both OSS and wikipedia are meritocracies in which power and position is gained by doing things - writing software or writing articles. Of course I agree with the sentiment, but I don't see where the editorial groups are constituted. They are not constituted, they are de facto. Perhaps team was the wrong word - more often there are de facto, self-appointed editorial guardians for articles. But quite often these guardians get together to back one another up. And yes, sometimes they fight. Tim C 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/
Re: [openhealth] CCHIT biased towards proprietary software??
Fred Trotter wrote: The current CCHIT pricing module seems biased against any GPL based system. Fred, you don't think that the CCHIT pricing is biased against software released under other types of free, open source licenses? Joseph has already written about this, but I would like for us to consider group action in the issue. The first issue is pricing. It will cost a $25,000 to $35,000 one-time fee to perform the test. After certification, an annual fee based on sales will be required which will be at least $5,000 a year. According to... http://www.healthcareitnews.com/story.cms?id=4639 This pricing assumes a proprietary business model. The seal of approval model is also problematic. Suppose I pay the fee to have MirrorMed (my project of choice) certified. There is no way for me to guarentee that only I benifit from the seal. My competitors which have full access to the code that I would have certified would be able to correctly claim that the code had been certified, and would benifit with me. As with the original pricing there is no way to fairly spread these kinds of costs across a community. As a result, FOSS medical software could face an environment where there products could not compete against certified proprietary products. This is of interest because certification of medical and health software is a debate which we are about to have here in Australia. I think that the key question is: what does certification involve? How is it done? Is the $25000 certification fee required in order to employ a team of High Priests who use magical incantations and crystal balls to determine whether a particular software product should be certified, or is there an objective list of criteria which products must meet or fulfil? Hopefully the latter. Clearly these criteria should be published, and publishers of medical software should be encouraged to document how their product meets these criteria. The cost of certifying a product for which its vendor/publisher has done all the hard work for the certifying agency by documenting how it meets the certification criteria should cost a lot less to have certified than system without such documentation. The vendor/publisher-provided certification documentation might comprise things like reference to design documents, automated tests to demonstrate compliance with certain prescribed or proscribed behaviours, or reference to the source code for the product. Now, one can see why vendors of proprietary medical software would not want to make such certification documentation publicly available - it would reveal a great deal to their competitors about the engineering of their product and would probably require access to source code and a working copy of the product in order to be useful anyway - neither of which would be publicly available - so there would be little point. Hence, the certification documentation would need to be checked in secret by the certification authority or a trusted agent appointed or engaged by it. Secrecy costs money, hence the proposed certification charges. But there are no such impediments to publication of the certification documentation for open source health and medical software. Thus, in the case of open source software, the certifying authority could just require the publication of the certification documentation, and publicly call for objections to it. If no objections are received, the certification should be issued. This would be predicated on two (valid, I think) assumptions: a) that there are extremely strong disincentives for open source projects to cheat with respect to this certification documentation; and b) competitors to an open source product have an incentive to check the adequacy of the documentation and complain to the certification authority if they can show that the certification criteria are not met, or that the certification documentation is wrong in some way. Obviously there is still a high cost to certification for proprietary vendors and open source projects alike, but at least with the model described above, or variations on it, those costs can be distributed across a community of users and developers, and the certification can evolve and be maintained alongside the open source software itself, rather than having to be redone from scratch by behind-doors certifiers for each new release or version. And it is transparent. Transparency of certification and other quality assurance mechanisms is crucial for all health and medical software, I feel. Free and Open Source EMR vendors are not the only one effected by this. This will target any small vendor, open source or otherwise. www.emrupdate.com is writing a group letter for the CCHIT feedback process which points this out. http://www.emrupdate.com/forums/thread/46564.aspx I think that we should consider also writing a group letter. I would be willing to author this, if I knew that once it was written and reviewed, that some of the
Re: [openhealth] Demonstrations Standards.
David Forslund wrote: I've been quite impressed by the YAWL work of van der Alst at Eindhoven. It is probably technically superior to some of the other workflow systems out their, particularly in its richness and accuracy of expressing workflow, but I don't believe it supports any of the standards out there. Thus exchanging workflow models and interoperability would appear to be sacrificed which was the origin of this discussion. I know that XPDL isn't expressive enough for everything, but that might not be needed to get workflow out and in use. Shark currently has a longer history of stable releases, too. OK, thanks, good to know. We're mainly interested in the adequacy of the YAWL workflow calculus rather than their Java implementation - we plan to implement a workflow engine which will be built into our public health data collection app (in Python). I don't think that interoperability is important in our case either, but will search for a counter-case to that position before embarking on it in the next few weeks. Cheers, Tim C Tim.Churches wrote: Thomas Beale wrote: David Forslund wrote: We have been using workflow engines for a while. The one I happen to prefer is Shark (http://shark.objectweb.org) http://shark.objectweb.org%29 http://shark.objectweb.org%29 which is quite robust and uses standard WfMC's XPDL for the workflow representation and that it supports both Web Services and the OMG CORBA workflow standard. The lack of interoperability in workflow models is a major impediment. We worked with the City of Hope for three years to try to come up with the fundamental generic workflow for clinical trials, but didn't finish the task. My main interest in XPDL is that it separates out the workflow definitions from the implementation of workflow. The popular BPEL seems to confuse this issue, at least as I see it. Getting some agreement on the basic workflow elements for healthcare that might be shared would be quite interesting and valuable, in my opinion. During last last year I read 3 clinical workflow PhD dissertations, and spent a fair bit of time looking at BPEL, XPDL etc. My conclusions when struggling to see what was the workflow model to use to represent workflow were: a) none of the models I reviewed did everything needed b) I realised one day that the right way to represent such semantics is in a programming language-like syntax, rather than the object model form. The reason for this is that a syntax and parser approach are far more amenable to understanding a problem domain; it is only when it is completely sorted that you can afford to publish object models. c) such a language needs to have all the temporal operators required by workflow, including all the synchronous/asynchronous branching, split join operators and so on. I can imagine a modified version of current programming language syntax might go close to this. The advantage is that the language can be improved over time, but previous workflows will still compile (if the compiler builders take care); whereas object model representations are usually left out in the cold because they are the equivalent of what the compiler generates (the parse tree), not the input, whose syntax might not change, but whose meaning might. d) the XML-based attempts really suffer from not having an abstract language. XML is just a transfer syntax. When will people start getting this? (do you read OWL in XML-RDF? Of course not, you read it in OWL-abstract; do you read .class files or .java files? etc). Worse, XML models are actually direct serialisations of structural object models, they are not any kind of syntax. It is too early in the learning curve of this area to be committing to object models. I agree with Dave that this area is interesting and important to sort out. I'll put the PhD thesis links on openEHR.org - they are all a great read. my 5c Any opinion on YAWL ( http://www.yawl.fit.qut.edu.au/ )? Tim C YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS * Visit your group openhealth http://groups.yahoo.com/group/openhealth on the web. * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/. SPONSORED LINKS Software distribution http://groups.yahoo.com/gads?t=msk=Software+distributionw1=Software+distributionw2=Salon+softwarew3=Medical+softwarew4=Software+associationw5=Software+jewelryw6=Software
Re: [openhealth] Demonstrations Standards.
Wayne Wilson wrote: Boy, is this discussion bringing back old memories, Dave Forslund reminds me exactly how old later on and I have some inline comments. Just below, Tom Beale suggests interoperability built on engineering principles. Some discussion follows about the difficulty of connecting systems with different models, etc. Um, is some of this discussion occurring on a different list, or privately - no problem if so, but just curious because I haven't seen all the messages which you quote below from the openhealth list on Yahoo. So, I agree with Tom about what experience tells us about standards and de facto momentum. Also agree that de facto engineering standards, rather than ones nutted out by small, select technical committees, tend to be much better. However, de facto engineering standards only develop when one company or group comes up with a very good implementation way ahead of everyone else. I don't think that is the case in much of health informatics - typically engineering solutions which might become standards take so long to develop that competing or alternative solutions inevitably spring up during the development period. Unless one solution is so vastly superior on all counts to the others (which hardly ever happens in health informatics), we end up with a plurality of engineering solutions and national authorities or standards committees then have to decide between them and anoint one or the other, or at least a few. David Forslund wrote: The vendor lock-in was the biggest factor that worked against the adoption of the fairly reasonable OMG specifications we worked on from 96-01. Gosh, was it that long ago? I have come to believe that alongside vendor lock-in, high complexity played a significant role. I agree. Complexity + lack-of-Internet in the mid-1990s - lack of CORBA take-up. If you look at all the SOAP, WSDL and other current WS-* standards, they are just as complex as CORBA (but mostly not as good) - but the social network effects of the Internet mean that the complexity can be conquered, even by a small start-up software company. I am not as sold on multi-source components as I once was. I believe that nearly all the value lies in process (workflow in it's generic sense) and how various 'natural' groupings of functions (Things that people do in a patient care setting) need to hand off to each other. Absolutely. We have recently realised, with respect to public health information systems, that workflow management is just as important as semantic and syntactic information management, if not more so. We're busily reading up everything we can on various workflow engines and their underlying calculus and theoretical bases. I think the same applies to hospital-based clinical medicine, and to primary care. In fact, some form of workflow engine are vital to any human enterprise which can't be done or isn't typically done by a small group who can all talk to one-another face-to-face in order to co-ordinate their actions. Clearly many people 'sense' this value and find all encompassing suites attractive. Before Health care IT trys to build the PeopleSoft or SAP of clinical care I think we need to absorb the lesson of those big suites: Change in operations is constant and loosely coupled systems change faster than tightly coupled systems. Yup. Tim C 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/
Re: [openhealth] Post from Brian Bray of MInoru Development regarding the openhealth list name
Bhaskar, KS wrote: I am forwarding an e-mail from Brian Bray of Minoru Development, where he evidently expects this list to change its name. I am not a lawyer - I do not know whether the name of a mailing list can conflict with a trademark, but I would like to bring his message to the attention of the members of the list openhealth@yahoogroups.com in order for you to express your opinions. Good question. It also depends on whether Minoru has protected openhealth through an International Trade Mark application under the Madrid Protocol, and in which countries it applied for protection (and whether registration of the application was granted and has been maintained in those countries). However, I suspect that none of this will matter to Yahoo - just the merest hint of possible infringement of a trade mark registered in just one country is probably enough to cause it to remove the list or require a change of name. But there are always Horst's servers as an alternative home, as I mentioned previously. Please, no flames - let's keep the discussion moderate and professional. Seconded. Tim C Forwarded Message From: Brian Bray [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: openhealth-list@minoru-development.com To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], openhealth-list@minoru-development.com Subject: Why are you here? (was Re: Hello list) Date: Sun, 12 Mar 2006 21:01:17 -0600 Tim Churches a écrit : Hmmm, does Minoru plan to assert its trade mark against the Openhealth list on Yahoo (see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/openhealth/ )? I'm not expecting that I'll have to. It depends on the the other list and my decisions over the next few weeks. The way I see it, there are two possibilities for the motivations of the creators of the other list: 1) It really is a question of the technical capabilities of the list and the lack of support. In this case, the folks running the yahoo list will have no problem changing the name to avoid confusion. The two lists will either merge at some point or specialize to meet different needs of the community. The yahoo list has critical mass, so a name change is unlikely to cause its members to leave. 2) The motivation is to profit from the goodwill that Minoru has in the community on an ongoing basis. In this case, the folks running the yahoo list will resist changing the name and it will be necessary to assert the trademark to protect Minoru's interests and reputation. But, as I said, I'm not expecting this to be necessary. I believe that we can come to some understanding that is best for everyone. In any event, the needs of the community have substantially changed since the Openhealth list was created. When we started, there were just a small number of open source projects. They were duplicating each others work, the creators had never met or communicated, and the level of competition was preventing collaboration to move ahead more quickly. Thanks to you and the other members of the Openhealth list, there is much more understanding and appreciation of the merits of different approaches to solve different problems. There is also much more collaboration as projects exchange not only ideas, but modules (such as FreeB for example). Ongoing communication between projects is still important, but there are now many mechanisms and places where that happens. The question I asked in my first reponse to your note Why are you here? This is a serious question we should address to determine the future of the list and whether it still has a value in the community. The increasing number of open source healthcare projects creates a need to objective comparative reviews and critiques to help refine their work. There is also a need for greater communication and colllaboration between physicians and engineers one the one hand, and open source developers and medical informatics research on the other. Can this list help meet these needs? -- In terms of the technical capabilities of the list, the reason for the long delay in upgrading the list is that my internet service provider was not ready. I considered hosting the list on an open source product or moving it to a free service in the past, but both these options had drawbacks. It is just a fact of life that Minoru's sites are subject to attack. My ISPs report that our sites are subject to more security incidents than other sites they host, including e-commerce sites. I have hosted other lists directly, and came to the conclusion that the Openhealth list absolutely needs stronger security support than we could ensure in-house. For example, getting an e-mail saying you have more than 10,000 administrative
Re: [openhealth] [Fwd: [GPCG_TALK] Open Source Software: A Primer for Health Care Leaders]
Nandalal Gunaratne wrote: Will Ross [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tim has done a good job of analysing this report. I only covered 5 paragraphs in one small section of the report - that's all I have read. There are another 30 pages of it... Tim C I do not think anyone whould have the freedom to create their own versions of what FOSS means and the licences mean as well! There is however a subtle difference between open source software and Free Libre Open Source Software.. Nandalal Tim, I agree with your take on the report. To me it falls into the category of any publicity is better than no publicity. I winced when reading it, knowing that the intended audience is inherently unfamiliar with open source as a license category. The muddled idea that the level of restriction on a license has any causal relationship in the world with project forking is nonsensical, but unfortunately it seems coherent to outsiders seriously describing open source to their fellow outsiders. The up side of the report is that as wrong as it is on the details, it still opens the door for more expansive adoption of open source. I encourage non-technical executive decision makers to read it because the net effect is more legitimacy for open source solutions in the enterprise. [wr] - - - - - - - - On Mar 11, 2006, at 12:44 AM, Tim.Churches wrote: Maury Pepper wrote: Tim, I'd be interested to hear why you feel that way about the report. I have read comments by others praising it. Perhaps they have missed something. As I said, I have not read the entire report, and my observation that teh authors did not understand what they were talking about was restricted, as I indicated, to the section titled Licensing for Open Source. Here is what they say (numbers in square brackets refer to my commentary which follows): There are two basic types of open source licenses: unrestricted and restricted.[1] Each applies in certain circumstances.[2] Unrestricted licenses are a great way to promote broad use of a new technology very quickly, such as implementing an important new privacy standard. They do not limit the distribution of derivative works or the use of open source software in commercial software.[3] The Apache and BSD licenses are examples. Restricted licenses are ideal for maintaining the integrity of software code and preventing splinter efforts.[4] The restrictions ensure that the code will always be freely available.[5] This enables integrators and the hospitals, clinics and practices they support to have a reliable code base.[6] The Free Software Foundation has coined the term copyleft (vs. copyright) to refer to restrictive licenses, like the GNU general public license (GPL), which requires that modified versions of a GPL program be free software as well.[7] [1] This would appear to be a brand new classification or characterisation of open source licenses which the authors have dreamt up. I find it misleading at worst, unhelpful at best. [2] No, each type of license might best be applied in certain circumstances (or for certain purposes or projects). But circumstances rarely dictate that a restricted (i.e copyleft) or unrestricted (i.e non-copyleft) license *has* to be applied, except of course for derivative works. [3] No, but nor do restricted licenses (such as the GPL) limit the *distribution* of derivative works. [4] Really? How? Forking of projects and code bases is just as easy with GPLed code as it is with BSD licensed code, as is independent distribution of modified versions of that forked code. [5] The restrictions imposed by the GPL don't ensure that code will always be freely available - BSD-licensed code is just as likely to remain freely available as GPLed code - once released, BSD or GPL code will always remain freely available (as long as someone archives it and makes copies of those archives freely available in perpetuity, but with facilities such as SourceForge and Savannah, that almost always happens these days). [6] This is ambiguous: do they mean access to a body of reliable code or reliable access to a body of code (of variable reliability)? If the former, then I'm afraid that free availability of code does not necessarily mean that it will be reliable. [7] Wrong. The GPL requires that modified versions which are distributed to third parties or otherwise published also be distributed under the GPL. However, a hospital or clinic or practice may modify a GPLed program as much as it likes, but as long as it does not distribute or publish that modified version (and the GPL puts it under no obligation to do so), it does not have to apply the GPL to the modified code - see section 2.b of the GPL
Re: [openhealth] Open Source Software: A Primer for Health Care Leaders
Tim.Churches wrote: Nandalal Gunaratne wrote: Will Ross [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Tim has done a good job of analysing this report. I only covered 5 paragraphs in one small section of the report - that's all I have read. There are another 30 pages of it... I skimmed through some more of it - their hearts are in the right place and the overall thrust of the report is OK, but it is riddled with annoying technical inaccuracies. For example, on page 14, they say: Each open source software program comes with a license that grants royalty-free copyrights to the user. Nope, that's just wrong guys - particularly annoying when just 4 pages later they get it right: An open source project owns the software copyright. Licenses grant certain nonexclusive rights to licensees. However, I don't have the time or energy to review it all in detail. The irony is that they could have leveraged an open source model for the report itself, by a) inviting a group of people who knew something about open source (eg those on this list...) to provide editorial feedback to them so that the more egregious of their technical errors could be corrected before publication and b) publish it under a Creative Commons or GNU FDL (free documentation) license. Tim C I do not think anyone whould have the freedom to create their own versions of what FOSS means and the licences mean as well! There is however a subtle difference between open source software and Free Libre Open Source Software.. Nandalal Tim, I agree with your take on the report. To me it falls into the category of any publicity is better than no publicity. I winced when reading it, knowing that the intended audience is inherently unfamiliar with open source as a license category. The muddled idea that the level of restriction on a license has any causal relationship in the world with project forking is nonsensical, but unfortunately it seems coherent to outsiders seriously describing open source to their fellow outsiders. The up side of the report is that as wrong as it is on the details, it still opens the door for more expansive adoption of open source. I encourage non-technical executive decision makers to read it because the net effect is more legitimacy for open source solutions in the enterprise. [wr] - - - - - - - - On Mar 11, 2006, at 12:44 AM, Tim.Churches wrote: Maury Pepper wrote: Tim, I'd be interested to hear why you feel that way about the report. I have read comments by others praising it. Perhaps they have missed something. As I said, I have not read the entire report, and my observation that teh authors did not understand what they were talking about was restricted, as I indicated, to the section titled Licensing for Open Source. Here is what they say (numbers in square brackets refer to my commentary which follows): There are two basic types of open source licenses: unrestricted and restricted.[1] Each applies in certain circumstances.[2] Unrestricted licenses are a great way to promote broad use of a new technology very quickly, such as implementing an important new privacy standard. They do not limit the distribution of derivative works or the use of open source software in commercial software.[3] The Apache and BSD licenses are examples. Restricted licenses are ideal for maintaining the integrity of software code and preventing splinter efforts.[4] The restrictions ensure that the code will always be freely available.[5] This enables integrators and the hospitals, clinics and practices they support to have a reliable code base.[6] The Free Software Foundation has coined the term copyleft (vs. copyright) to refer to restrictive licenses, like the GNU general public license (GPL), which requires that modified versions of a GPL program be free software as well.[7] [1] This would appear to be a brand new classification or characterisation of open source licenses which the authors have dreamt up. I find it misleading at worst, unhelpful at best. [2] No, each type of license might best be applied in certain circumstances (or for certain purposes or projects). But circumstances rarely dictate that a restricted (i.e copyleft) or unrestricted (i.e non-copyleft) license *has* to be applied, except of course for derivative works. [3] No, but nor do restricted licenses (such as the GPL) limit the *distribution* of derivative works. [4] Really? How? Forking of projects and code bases is just as easy with GPLed code as it is with BSD licensed code, as is independent distribution of modified versions of that forked code. [5] The restrictions imposed by the GPL don't ensure that code will always be freely available - BSD-licensed code is just as likely to remain freely available as GPLed code - once released, BSD or GPL
Re: [openhealth] OSS collections
Benjamin Jung wrote: Hello, I was trying to find a website that lists Open Source Applications used in Healthcare and their status, e.g. obsolete, beta, stable,... A quick Google search returned some pages that list applications, but they do not go into more details. Additionally, most of these 'link collection pages' have been updated only a couple of years ago. Are you aware of any such websites that give up-to-date information? If not: Do you think such a site would be beneficial to market OSS in healthcare in one single place? Anybody interested in some initial email brain storming? Imagine a physician/hospital/lab that is looking for an Open Source application for a specific purpose. Where do they get comprehensive, comparable information? Some applications are hosted on sites such as sourceforge and freshmeat; others aren't. Some applications are mentioned regularly in News and Blogs; others aren't. Some applications are being taught and introduced at university; others aren't. As other people have already mentioned, there are several sites with such catalogues and lists, with various degrees of currency. However, all of these sites focus primarily on open source applications, and to a lesser extent, open source infrastructure software (operating systems, Web servers, database servers, programming environments etc etc). Joseph dal Molin has correctly pointed out that pointers to evaluations of health-related open source applications would also be valuable. The problem is that there are, to my knowledge, very few such evaluations. Indeed, they are rather thin on the ground for closed-source health software applications as well. However, there are an increasing number of descriptions or mentions of open source software in health care and health research, and it may be valuable to catalogue these. For example, we have recently published a peer-reviewed paper which describes a public health surveillance system based on data collected from hospital emergency departments (aka emergency rooms, casualties), which primarily uses open source software components, from the server operating system up - see http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/5/141/abstract (OK, I'll admit that SAS is used in a few places in the system, but we'll replace that with Python and R code eventually.) A wiki or simple online database could be used to collect links to scientific papers and even web sites and blog entries which similarly make reference to the use of open source in health. It would even be possible to do some data mining to find these references, using Google Scholar ( http://scholar.google.com/ ) or directly using the full-text corpus now available for many open access journals (see for example http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/about/datamining/ ). However, I think that some sort of editorial oversight of such a catalogue would be needed, to prevent accumulation of junk and off-topic unsuitable references. Alas, at this stage, I am not volunteering for such an editorial role, but would be happy to contribute items (and even do some data mining to find candidate references). Perhaps one or more of the existing open source software catalogues might like to expand their scope to include references to or descriptions of OSS in health, rather than just open source applications. Tim C 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/
Re: [openhealth] Takin' it serious...
Koray Atalag wrote: but what bothers me with your recent post though is how this challenge/criticism is made: I am perfectly happy with criticism in a constructive/respectful and not neccesarily professional way...This was unfortunately not what happened with that message :-( Sorry if I offended you - it's these annoying cultural differences, you know. It'll be so much easier in another decade or so when we all think and act like Americans. Until then... Tim C 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/
Dangerous Idea 2 (was Re: [openhealth] The Question)
Tim Cook wrote: If any of you read The Edge ( http://www.edge.org/ ) you'll be familiar with John Brockman's annual big question to a chosen group of leading thinkers. Many on this mailing list have been working together since 1999 or before in some cases. I am wondering..in the context of open source healthcare IT lessons learned so far. What is your dangerous idea? Sticking once again to Tim's brief of open source healthcare IT lessons learned so far, my second dangerous idea is as follows (it is one which I have voiced previously): Large, expensive and important health IT projects have a rather high chance of failing (or of being only very partial successes) - estimates vary, but over 50% chance. Given that inescapable fact, it is sensible for every large, expensive and important health IT project (say any project with budget of over $1 million) to have a risk management strategy in anticipation of such failure or very partial success. So why not decide, from the outset, that 10% of the total project budget be devoted from the outset to a Plan B, which becomes the major risk management strategy for the main project (Plan A)? Furthermore, why not mandate that Plan B, which should be as independent as possible from the main project (Plan A), be done as an open source project - with the results to be open sourced and the underlying components to be, as far as possible, themselves open source. If Plan A succeeds, then Plan B is still released to the world as open source, and it is quite likely that someone somewhere will pick it and run with it, so the money and effort spent on risk management for Plan A will not have been wasted from the wider perspective. It may also be that Plan B acts as ongoing competition to a successful Plan A solution, thus preventing price-gouging for long-term support costs from the Plan A vendor/developer, and giving them cause to stay on their toes. Open source is a much better way to encourage such competition than simply splitting investment between two conventional closed-source vendors, since it is simple for small numbers of vendors to form a cartel. Open source mitigates against such collusion. Furthermore, if Plan A starts to look like it is going pear-shaped, then the existence of Plan B means that the overall project management or sponsors are far less likely to fall into the very common Fallacy of Sunk Costs - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost - which causes a vast amount of good money to be thrown after bad. Of course, if Plan A fails spectacularly (as they so often do) or if Plan A succeeds in a dysfunctional and very partial manner (even more common), then Plan B can be life-safer (perhaps literally, since we are talking about health care here). The only counter-argument against the 10% open source Plan B approach is that taking funding away from Plan A may precipitate its failure. I doubt that this is often - or ever - the case: I have yet to see a failing large health IT project which was rescued by injecting only 10% more funding. Typically supplementary injections of 50-100% of the initial funding are needed to salvage such projects. Tim C 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/
Re: [openhealth] Dangerous idea -- quality
Gregory Woodhouse wrote: Relying on process and testing as a means of achieving software quality is an admission of defeat Um, are you suggesting that the undefeated write software which is always completely defect-free, without the need for any form of process and testing? I agree that slavish, mindless adherence to process is not a substitute for putting one's brain in gear and really thinking through the issues of software quality. But I can't conceive of any approach to software quality that doesn't involve testing. No testing? Now that IS a dangerous idea! Tim C 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/
Re: [openhealth] Dangerous idea -- quality
Gregory Woodhouse wrote: On Jan 7, 2006, at 3:41 PM, Tim.Churches wrote: Gregory Woodhouse wrote: Relying on process and testing as a means of achieving software quality is an admission of defeat Um, are you suggesting that the undefeated write software which is always completely defect-free, without the need for any form of process and testing? No, that's not quite what I said, OK, fair enough, I'm just trying to work out exactly what you meant. but I think the undefeated would not be content relying on testing to determine whether or not their software worked correctly. Um, if you don't rely on testing, then how do you determine that your software works correctly or not? I thought that provably correct software was still in the research labs? ADA makes a stab at it, which is why the US Dept of Defence loves it (they never make mistakes like bombing innocent families in Baghdad, right?), but geez, look at the costs. Similarly languages like Eiffel go to pains to make it hard (but not impossible) to make mistakes due to extensive use of programming-by-contract and pre- and post-conditions etc. But even then, such languages do nothing to check that the higher-level design of software is correct. I agree that slavish, mindless adherence to process is not a substitute for putting one's brain in gear and really thinking through the issues of software quality. But I can't conceive of any approach to software quality that doesn't involve testing. No testing? Now that IS a dangerous idea! Thank you. :-) I'm still curious as to what you suggest as an alternative or adjunct to testing, if anything? Or are you just an extreme optimist? Tim C 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/
Re: [openhealth] The Question
Koray Atalag wrote: I was crazy enough to put my personal funds and run after an RD project to realize this approach; but as you might guess I failed! Now I do not have a car:( The World is not ready yetIf you are interested it is also at SourceForge.Net: http://cerebrus-fp6.sourceforge.net I had a look at the above site, but it was very difficult to divine what the Cerebrus project was intended to be about - except that the idea was to seek funding for it under the European 6th Framework. However, after a bit of poking around, I found this document, which gives some clues: http://cerebrus-fp6.sourceforge.net/docs/CEREBRUS_InitialProposal_Final.pdf Um, very ambitious indeed. I think that even had you owned a fleet of Rolls-Royces, you would still have to had sold them all! Tim C 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/
Re: [openhealth] Reflexions on Knowledge Modelling
Tim Cook wrote: On Wed, 2006-01-04 at 10:33 +0100, Christian Heller wrote: However, I think it is time to accept a citation of Wikipedia, for example. Many profs claim that it were not scientific enough. Wikipedia is not peer-reviewed in any formal process. All professors should claim it is not scientific enough. That said, I do think most of the information there is quite accuratebut I still use caution and NEVER use it for reference. Don't you (ALL) think we badly need an Open Source and Free Journal in our domain. I strongly feel this must [..] There is one: http://www.josmc.org/ There is an online, peer-reviewed, free medical/health journal that is indexed and carries an (estimated) 2.0 impact factor: http://www.jmir.org/?JMIR_Home:Why_choose_JMIR%3F They are also offering to provide support for a new journal if you are ready to start one. See the website above for details. You can also submit relevant research information to OpenClinical for publication; http://www.openclinical.org/home.html Though I doubt it will count for your publication requirements for your degree??? What is wrong with BioMed Central medical Informatics and Decision Making? It is peer-reviewed and indexed in Medline. Fully open access. If your university is a member then you won't have to pay any author fees. If not, the charges are about teh same as for JMIR, I think. See http://www.biomedcentral.com/bmcmedinformdecismak/ Tim C 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/
[openhealth] WHO Bulletin: August special theme: Health Information Systems
Thanks to Ken Harvey for the following information. A pity that WHO does not recognise the role of open source software in establishing suitable and sustainable health information systems in low and middle income countries. Tim C Ken Harvey wrote: The latest issue of the Bulletin of the World Health Organization (WHO) Volume 83, Number 8, August 2005, 561-640 Website at http://www.who.int/bulletin/en/ Summaries of a selection of articles from this month's issue: This month's special theme: Health Information Systems http://www.who.int/bulletin/current/editorials/en/index.html In the first editorial, Sally Stansfield welcomes growing recognition of the need for more investment in health information systems. Such systems may seem expensive for developing countries, but the costs are offset by improved efficiencies. In another editorial, Kimberlyn M. McGrail Charlyn Black argue that developing countries starting to set up health information systems can learn from the mistakes of wealthier countries. Middle-to-low-income countries should incorporate mechanisms to ensure that health data can be easily accessed by those who need them. Finally, Tony Williams argues that poor countries should shift to policy-making that is based on evidence by developing a health information system that adapts the existing data situation. Why countries need health information systems http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/8/news.pdf In the News, Haroon Ashraf writes that developing countries are under pressure to build and reinforce their health information systems to fulfil donor requirements. In the Bulletin interview, Ties Boerma, Director of WHO Department of Measurement and Health Information Systems, discusses the development of health information systems over the past few decades and why countries need these more than ever today. Health data as integral system http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/8/578.pdf In the leading policy and practice paper, Carla AbouZahr Ties Boerma introduce the theme issue on health information systems and argue that health information should be treated as an integral system. This is difficult when donors determine data priorities based on their own needs and not those of the country as a whole. A further obstacle to a well-functioning health information system is cost, but the authors conclude that investment in such a system can lead to more efficient health-care services and save money in the long term. Data for poverty reduction and Equity challenges Three papers discuss the role of data in poverty reduction and addressing inequities in health. Sarah B. Macfarlane argues http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/8/590.pdf ) that efforts to strengthen health information systems in low- and middle-income countries should forge links with data systems in other sectors. Lexi Bambas Nolen et al. http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/8/597.pdf review core information requirements for health information systems in seeking to address these inequities and they propose short- and longer-term strategies for strengthening health information systems as a tool to analyse inequities in health. Finally, Vanessa Rommelmann et al. (pp. 569-577 http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/8/569.pdf describe how they examined nine systems that provide a range of health and other information in the United Republic of Tanzania. Monitoring vaccine safety in Viet Nam http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/8/604.pdf Health information systems to monitor vaccine safety are used in industrialized countries to detect adverse events related to vaccinations. Such systems are often absent in developing countries and are urgently needed. In his article, Lorenz von Seidlein describes a study in which he used a large linked database to monitor vaccine-related adverse events in Khanh Hoa province, Viet Nam. The study confirmed the safety of a measles vaccination campaign and showed that it is feasible to establish health information systems to provide reliable data in a developing country at low cost. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- font face=arial size=-1a href=http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=12h7kstuj/M=362329.6886308.7839368.1510227/D=groups/S=1707281942:TM/Y=YAHOO/EXP=1123173504/A=2894321/R=0/SIG=11dvsfulr/*http://youthnoise.com/page.php?page_id=1992 Fair play? Video games influencing politics. Click and talk back!/a./font ~- 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/
Re: [openhealth] New file uploaded to openhealth
openhealth@yahoogroups.com wrote: Hello, This email message is a notification to let you know that a file has been uploaded to the Files area of the openhealth group. File: /openhealth-list.tar.gz Uploaded by : tw_cook [EMAIL PROTECTED] Description : Openhealth List archives 2003-05-27 to 2005-06-23 You can access this file at the URL: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/openhealth/files/openhealth-list.tar.gz To learn more about file sharing for your group, please visit: http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/files Regards, tw_cook [EMAIL PROTECTED] Have the attachments in this archive which contain MS-Windows viruses been removed? When it was sent to me to look at, my Windows machine reported that it contained several viruses in zip file attachments. Tim C 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/
Re: [openhealth] REMITT GPL violation
Fred Trotter wrote: I know that there is a patent application because the FreeMED project has disclosed this... http://www.linuxmednews.com/1098376300/index_html They may have received a patent already or had it rejected. They have not recently indicated what the status of the application is, which is why I indicate that I do not know exactly what they have. It would be worthwhile clarifying the status of the application. Since they used my copyrighted code, made improvements to it, and then made a patent application on it there is a problem. Technically they could have done this while licensing the code under the GPL (which I think is a great way to actively defend intellectual property - an even better step would be to get a patent and then donate it to the EFF or FSF) Personally I am opposed to software algorithms and business methods being patentable at all. But in those unfortunate countries in which such patents are issued (eg US, Australia, Japan, India), what you propose is probably OK, provided that universal royalty-free patent licenses are actually granted to all open source implementations (no just one particular open source implementation). That rarely happens, it seems. Yes. Another solution would be for them to distribute your MCSI code in a different package (under the GPL only), and have their MPL-licnsed code call it at run-time. That is allowed by teh GPL, which explicitly does not cover run-time behaviour. That is true, if they called the GPL code from the command line, instead of linking it as they do now that would be OK. They still have to change the license on the file however. Correct me if I am wrong, but they are dynamically linking to your code at run-time, is that correct? If so, then the GPL does not apply. Only if they statically link your code with theirs, or combine the source code of their code with theirs, and then distribute the resulting statically linked object code or combined source code, do the strong copyleft provisions of the GPL apply. Note that although the FSF has various assertion about what does and doesn't constitute combining of code in their view, the (unfortunate, in my view) reality is that the GPL explicitly excludes run-time linking from its scope. That is not to say that the way your module has been included in FreeMED under a different license and without copyright attribution is correct - merely to say that the FreeMED people do not need to resort to interfacing with your module via the command line in order to compy with the GPL. However, it would probably be best if they distributed your module in a clearly separate package (with GPL-only licensing) - but they could still call it at run-time as they do now without teh GPL licensing of your module obliging them to also license all their code under the GPL. The strong copyleft or so-called viral properties of the GPL are actually a lot weaker than many people realise - and they have been overstated by opponents of free, open source software as part of FUD campaigns. I agree that all open source projects need to be hyper-scrupulous with respect to documenting the copyright ownership of portions of code, and in respecting any pre-existing licenses which apply to that code. But if the FreeMED Foundation is teh legitimate copyright holder for a chunk of code, they are under no obligation to license it under the GPL just because it would make it easier for you or Uversa to re-use the code in your products. And I did not ask them to. However when I own the copyright to code and then they try to license that code back to me under the license of their choice that is... upsetting. More than upsetting and if that is teh case, they should be requested to fix the situation, or at worst, legally compelled to fix it. If they want to do a re-write of FreeB and have the copyright privileges that go along with that, fine do that. But using my code as a base and then not respecting my license or giving me credit... Don't stand on my shoulders and then well you know... Yup. Tim C 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/
Re: [openhealth] REMITT GPL violation
Fred Trotter wrote: Tim, Personally I am opposed to software algorithms and business methods being patentable at all. But in those unfortunate countries in which such patents are issued (eg US, Australia, Japan, India), what you propose is probably OK, provided that universal royalty-free patent licenses are actually granted to all open source implementations (no just one particular open source implementation). That rarely happens, it seems. Agreed. Correct me if I am wrong, but they are dynamically linking to your code at run-time, is that correct? They dynamically link with the FreeMED project, but by concern is within the REMITT project itself which is statically linked perl. Sorry, I thought that Perl automatically compiled source code to intermediate object code at runtime, and that intermediate object code then runs on a virtual machine? Isn't that correct? Let's set it out clearly: SourceCodeA, distributed in a distinct package, is licensed under the MPL only. SourceCodeB, distributed in a different, distinct package, is licensed under the GPL only. We accept the argument that the GPL and MPL are incompatible. 1) If SourceCodeA is combined with SourceCodeB and the combined source code is distributed to third parties, then that combination of source code must be licensed under the GPL. 2) If SourceCodeA is combined with SourceCodeB through statically compilation, and the resulting object code is distributed to third parties, then SourceCodeA (as well as SourceCodeB) must be made available under the GPL. 3) If SourceCodeA is combined with SourceCodeB but the combined source code is NOT distributed to third parties, then there is no compulsion to provide access to that combined source code under the GPL. 4) If SourceCodeA is combined with SourceCodeB through statically compilation, and the resulting object code is NOT distributed to third parties, then there is no compulsion to make SourceCodeA available under the GPL. 5) If SourceCodeA calls SourceCodeB at runtime only, then there is no requirement for SourceCodeA to be made available under the GPL. Note that apart from the fact that runtime behaviour is explicitly outside teh scope of the GPL, this is also a corollary of 4) above. In other words, even if SourceCodeA and SourceCodeB end up being combined into a single piece of object code at runtime, because that object code is not being distributed to others, SourceCodeA does not fall under teh provisions of ther GPL. Tim C 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/
