Thanks for replying... I sent you a private email about coordinating our efforts.
-FT On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 1:10 PM, <karo...@it-science-center.de> wrote: > Hi Fred! > > Congratulations! As co-chair of the EFMI LIFOSS WG and member of the IMIA > OS WG I am looking forward to work together with LibertyHSF. I am confident > that we share the same long term goals and that we can collaborate to > achieve these comon goals. > > Our current focus is on fostering the collaboration between different FLOSS > in health care projects and to organize conferences and workshops to > disseminate knowledge about the benefits and prospects of FLOSS. We recently > organized a workshop at BIOSTEC (OSEHC) and will organize a second edition > of OSEHC in 2010. We also organized a workshop at Med-e-Tel 2009 and will > have another one in 2010. At MIE2009 there will be a workshop about FLOSS > -HC and in 2010 we participate in the organization of the International > workshop on ehealth in emerging economies (IWEEE). > > Thanks for taking the initiative of founding LibertyHSF and looking forward > to work together with you. > > Best wishes, > Thomas Karopka > > > > > > > > FOSS Community, > > I am writing to let you know that Liberty Health Software > Foundation has received 501c3 status. > Dr. Valdes and I have been working on this for over two years and we are > ready to present this to the community-at-large. > > The purpose of Liberty Health Software Foundation (LibertyHSF) is to > improve > the delivery and science of healthcare by supporting the development and > use > of Free/Libre Healthcare Software. > > We are in a unique position with the organization because we want to both > be > careful with how we set things up for long term sustainability, as well as > getting some critical tasks done now. I wish this email were somewhat more > organized, but as it stands it is just several lists of directions that we > want to take as well as open questions about a slew of issues. Feel free to > email me privately or call me to discuss anything that you would prefer to > remain outside the public forum. I am and will remain baised towards those > who have contributed towards our community, I will listen to everyone, but > I > will act based on the opinions of those who have sacrificed for our > movement. > > OPEN QUESTION? > How do we choose a BOD? > > OPEN QUESTION? > We want a mix of FOSS corporate and FOSS community interests. Sometimes > what > our successful FOSS companies do is in the interests of the FOSS developer > and user interests and sometimes it is not? Our community has several > non-vendor roles: deployers, which include IT specialist who deploy FOSS, > clinical users, developers and finally the consumers who have their health > data stored in FOSS systems. How do we balance community and vendor > interests? > > OPEN QUESTION? > We want to include and embrace hybrid FOSS/proprietary companies like > Mysis, > ECW and DSS but still acknowledge that at least part of their interests are > to support proprietary software. How do we strike a balance of encouraging > the risks that these hybrid companies are taking, but still remaining true > to the FOSS values? > > Liberty HSF goal: Certification: Create a certification system compatible > with FOSS > -> Current plan: work with CCHIT to become the scholarship > organization for CCHIT certification, and to make CCHIT have a reasonable > cert option for FOSS > -> Backup plan: become an FOSS oriented CCHIT alternative > > OPEN QUESTION? > How do we deal with CCHIT as an organization AND as a community of > independent thinkers? > > OPEN QUESTION? > When do we decide that we need to 'fork' CCHIT and setup an alternative > certification system? > > Liberty HSF goal: Vendor organization: be a FOSS EHRVA (this is what we are > talking about here) > -> Represent FOSS Vendors the way that EHRVA claims to and > HIMSS pretends it does not. > -> Lobby (in compliance with the rules for 501c3) for FOSS > vendor interests > -> Create our own definition of 'meaningful use' to through > into the mix > > OPEN QUESTION? > We need to give a vehicle the FOSS vendors to express their views, as > distinct from the community. Vendor profitability is critical to our > community, we need FOSS vendors to form the backbone of our community. How > do we carve out a space for vendors specifically, while ensuring that the > overall purpose of Liberty HSF to represent every member of our community > is > not damaged? > > -> Community Organization: be a FOSS HIMSS > -> Create and back FOSS conferences (like DOCHS and > FOSSHEALTH) > > OPEN QUESTION? > How do we run better conferences and meetings so that eventually we can > compete with HIMSS? > > -> Development organization: be a FOSS RWJ > -> Fund and/or internally develop FOSS solutions that are > 'orphan', the kind of projects that are not clearly profitable, but are > still useful. > -> Like documentation? > -> Like user manuals? > -> Like toolkits? > -> Like services that the community needs, like > CA services etc etc > > OPEN QUESTION? > How do we tell the difference between projects that need extra development > dollars and coders, and those that are largely self-sufficient? How do we > choose what projects to support? To a great extent, this will have to be > determined by those who donate either time or money? > > OPEN QUESTION? > How do we interact with other organizations like Open Health Tools and > WorldVistA? > > My plan so far: > > The following seems obviously true and represents 'already made' decisions. > > - We need to move away from me as benevolent dictator of this > organization quickly, to establish credibility. But a full BOD should be > something that the community has input on, we should have general > nominations etc etc. So Dr. Valdes, David Whitten and I will appoint an > arbitrary interim BOD (announced soon) which will allow us to move > quickly > and take our time thinking about the BOD issue long term. > - No one is going to have tons of time for this, and there need to be > sub-groupings of LibertyHSF for different purposes, sub-groups should > have > latitude to take positions for LibertyHSF on particular issues. These > should > take the form of small committees. > - Obvious initial groups include: > - A vendor association committee, made up of representatives of FOSS and > Hybrid vendors in order to establish strictly vendor positions. A > critical > first question for this group will be how does the FOSS community define > 'meaningful use'? > - A certification committee who will take over my role as chief > negotiator with CCHIT and determine when and if LibertyHSF needs to > become a > certifying body. > - Conferences and Development committees are equally important, but as we > have no general funds for development yet that is a non-issue, and the > conferences are already happening without LibertyHSF so these can wait. > > My short-term priorities are to create grass roots lobbying during this > politically critical time and to sort out the certification issue ASAP. > Should I have other very-short term priorities? > > Long term my priorities for LibertyHSF are: > to create an formal meeting place for the vendors in the industry that > represents them towards governments, > to sponsor important development that is not particularly 'profitable' > (assuming vendors will sponsor profitable development), like documentation, > or helpful libraries. > to create a conference or series of conferences that become the central > meeting point(s) for our community > to increase between project collaboration > to educate clinicians about software freedom > to lobby in support of FOSS in healthcare > to encourage the use of FOSS in health academia > to collaboratively develop standards/position documents when no other > existing organization can/will address the issue > to apply for grants for development funds > to provide education for the implications of FOSS licensing in healthcare > to provide a trusted third party for devisive community issues > to make health databases and health data services available in a FOSS > compatible fashion, (like a FOSS drug database) > to encourage proprietary health software vendors to become hybrid or purse > FOSS software vendors > to remain neutral to particular projects but still recognizing the > relevance > of a user base (i.e. no preference between Canonical and Redhat but still > recognize that GNU/Linux is more relevant than FreeDOS) > to make LibertyHSF -our- organization and not just -my- organization... to > that end: > > What long term and short term priorities am I missing? What does the > community want and need from this organization? > > -- > Fred Trotter > http://www.fredtrotter.com > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > > ------------------------------------ > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > -- Fred Trotter http://www.fredtrotter.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
