Tim, all archetypes published on openEHR are for free use, forever. Otherwise they don't go there. Free archetypes is our credo. What Sebastian was saying is that now that there is this freedom for a system builder or user to create their own archetypes, there is no easy way to stop them copyrighting them or making them proprietary. Of course, they would be silly to do so, and I am involved in setting up an international open archetype repository which will work in an open manner. Anyone will a private archetype will reduce the interoperability with other systems (although not destroy it, since all openEHR systems in the world use the same schema).
We don't expect that anyone sensible will go down this route, or stay on it. But in principle it could happen. Just like what happened when video recorders became available. Did everyone "do the right thing"? Sort of..... - thomas
