Brian,
That's fantastic! Congratulations!
I think it is really happening at the right time for our community of many projects.
I do have some questions which I am posing below.
---
On Thu, 04 Jan 2001 20:41:11 Brian Bray wrote:
...
>The 450,000 euro 15-month SPIRIT project will create
What happens after 15 months? What happens to all the information amassed? It will be
a shame to lose the resources after 15 months. What is the "exit" strategy?
...
>3) The "meeting place" will be a specialized server offering services to
>open source health care projects. The services include open source
>dissemination of research results, site hosting, developer tools such as
>CVS, communication tools, mailing lists, groupware applications, and
>audio/video conferencing.
Will you be using the Sourceforge software as a starting point or something else? It
seems to overlap with what Sourceforge does already.
The issue of 15-month limit is again very critical here. What do you want to deliver
within the 15 months and what / how will this 15 month contribute to a longer term
support for open health activities?
For example, are you really going to provide video conference within the 15 month?
>A key resource is a multilingual (English, French, German, Italian, and
>Spanish) index of available open source software with links to
>evaluations in the health care setting.
Sourceforge has some multi-lingual support. How will you be providing multi-lingual
support? For example, will you be able to help with translating OIO documentation into
some of the European languages?
The "evaluations" part may require a separate effort all together.
>We also expect to provide a lot of background material to help ourselves
>and others convince government policy makers, informatics research
>organizations and health care delivery organizations of the value of the
>open source approach.
Perhaps a "open health software testing lab"?
>4) Open source resources will be disseminated via the Internet and CD
>distribution. Business plans will be created for deploying selected
>resources in European markets on a commercial basis. This means plans
>and consortia for making selected open source products comply with
>national and regional regulations and effectively compete against
>existing market participants and/or create new markets.
Sounds good but not exactly sure how it will work. Does this mean you may be able to
help me distribute and support OIO commercially?
>We thank everyone on the Openhealth list for their enthusiasm and support
You are welcome! I expect to be handsomely repaid through the valuable services that
Minoru will continue to provide to the OIO :-).
...
>
>We need your continued guidance and support to make SPIRIT a success.
I am sure you will continue to receive comments and support if you are able to make
good use of them.
>We expect to have the web portal fully operational by next summer.
Why so long? When does the 15-month clock start ticking? How about getting something
up and running in a month and then make incremental improvements to reach "fully
functional" by summer???
LinuxMedNews/SquishDot and Sourceforge are examples of "interactive" portal software
that can be set up in a few days (or less).
>We
>will start with a simple web site within the next few weeks, and then
>add services based on your requirements.
How will it differ from LinuxMedNews, Sourceforge, and the current openhealth mailing
list?
>At the moment, you can help us by pointing us at European groups that we
>should approach to find additional software and information resources.
I really think you should consider creating a "testing lab" to produce trust-worthy,
high quality information about resources and products. It takes more than finding
software and resources to have useful information. In fact, misleading and inaccurage
information are frequently propagated. Minoru and LinuxMedNews already maintain lists
of open health projects and resources. However, as the list grows longer, some of the
projects are no longer active.
>We are also looking for specific ideas and help to get your projects
>well presented on the CD.
What CD?
...
>I invite you to ask questions about the project on the openhealth list.
I hope this is not too many questions all at once :-).
Andrew
---
Andrew P. Ho, M.D.
OIO: Open Infrastructure for Outcomes
www.TxOutcome.Org
Assistant Clinical Professor
Department of Psychiatry, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center
University of California, Los Angeles
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