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Dear all,

The OpenGALEN ontology / terminology is open source under something
approximating the BSD license. The license does not restrict
commercial use.

Our main desire is to enable an opensource, description logic based,
computable ontology, rather as Phillipe has called for. We have,
therefore, open sourced the OpenGALEN ontology itself in unrestricted
form. Note however that the open source distribution, available from
www.opengalen.org, is for the sources to that KB and not to any form
of compiled object you can actually meaningfully interact with
directly. That's because a dynamic instance only makes sense in the
context of a particular server implementation.

So, you need client compilation tools and a terminology server
encapsulating a description logic module...

The client tools to maintain, compile or examine the KB are now open
sourced also, from www.topthing.com, but they are necessarily not
licensed for commercial use. This is a constraint placed on us by
CinCom who control the distribution rights to the 3rd party software
(Visualworks) required to run the tools.

Finally, the only living instance of an OpenGALEN compliant
terminology server is strictly commercial (from www.kermanog,com) -
though not, as it happens, very expensive. Additionally, the
specification for a compliant OpenGALEN server is open, so there are
no barriers (apart from time and money) to somebody building another
one. OpenGALEN itself would be delighted to see an open source one.

If memory serves, the OMG TQS specification was drawn up in detailed
consultation by Harold Solbrig and the main technical folk of the day
at GALEN. The original TQS specification was, I think, a fairly
cut-down subset of the OpenGALEN Terminology Server API specification
at that time. I'm not sure what the relationship is now between the
Kermanog server and the current OMG specification, other than that I
would expect that the kermanog server supports (and the OpenGALEN
spec requires) substantially more than is called for in the OMG
specification.

regards,

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dr Jeremy Rogers MRCGP
OpenGALEN

[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.opengalen.org

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


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