On 5/17/06, Joseph Dal Molin <
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
You are correct in saying that Kevin's equation is incorrect..
My assumption was, based on the terseness of the reply, that I misunderstood the statement. I was asking for clarification of Kevin's question -- I may have jumped too quickly to conclusions. :-)
and why the authors of the Fortune article concluded Medsphere OpenVista is proprietary.
As anyone that's ever interfaced with the media will tell you, reporters get details wrong. Especially when you consider the technical nature of the details in as large of a system as VistA+Interfacing. Also, taking into account that Fortune is more focused on the financial aspects of businesses and not the technology itself, it does not surprise me in the least that an umbrella statement was made that we don't consider accurate. That's all that George was trying to clarify.
May I suggest that a clear and objective rebuttle to the Fortune
Magazine article claim or label that Medsphere OpenVista is proprietary
Again, I don't consider this a situation where a "rebuttal" is necessary. We're simply attempting to clarify a general quote -- a quote that attempts to wrap-up a lot of details in a single sentence.
The software in use is a mix of licenses: Public Domain, GPL and Proprietary. Medsphere uses the VistA source code as a base and charges no license fees (Public Domain source code is obviously "open source" in spirit, if not by license). Medsphere has previously released a bulk of work (Internationalization, ability to interact with console applications using a mouse, etc.) contained in the "MSC FM" package as GPL. Medsphere made specific changes to the system in use as directed by the customer (either specified or implied by requirements). Medsphere has provided a specific solution to satisfy the requirements of our customer (and partner!) which includes commercial software.
I think many of our colleagues on this list, must agree that when implementing VistA within a specific facility (private office, clinic or health center), many small and specific changes must be made to accommodate the organization. Have we released all these changes? Of course not... there's not much sense in that.
What I can say is that internally Medsphere continues to debate what technologies will be released to the community. Part of that is having the appropriate repository to do so and part of that is a decision based on the business merits. You can be sure that this group will be the first to know when source releases are made (just as it was when we GPL'd our version of FM) or our policies change.
Thank you, Ben
