Re: [openhealth] Re: OSHCA Membership question
David Forslund wrote: I don't see that your answer has much to do with my question. It isn't about where we have been but where we are going and why. I don't doubt the need for an international forum but what will be the constraints on participation? If you are a member of OSHCA, you can shape its policy and direction. If you are not, you are free to observe what OSHCA does, attend meetings and contribute, but non-members cannot vote on motions in general meetings. I would encourage you to join. I currently don't see any difference in most open source systems as to the vendor lock-in other than that one can look at the code. Um, and modify the code, and redistribute it. All of those are pretty big differences IMHO. Perhaps you mean no difference from a software engineering or software architecture perspective? That is debatable, particular since the quality of the software engineering and architecture of closed source systems is typically rather hard to judge, since code can't be inspected and the details of underlying technical architecture is usually regarded as a trade secret by the vendor. Either way, there is a lot more to health information systems which actually make a difference to people's health care and lives than just software engineering and good software interfaces. I don't see that the proposed fees for OSHCA will do anything other than allow it to organize (but not fund) meetings. I'm not sure that that will accomplish much without some purpose or goal to the meetings. I need to see the value of the organization. People can participate in our project, for example, for nothing and this includes contributing code, etc. This typically would be a lot more participation than might occur in OSHCA itself. Without a strong set of goals which might include interoperability, the value of OSHCA is unclear to me. Dave, there is no compulsion to join OSHCA, and you can chose to join OSHCA later if you think it is worth the time and money, or not. It's up to you. But if you want to have a significant impact on the agenda and policies of OSHCA, you'll need to join. If OSHCA is non-profit, will it be recognized as such in the US so that gifts to it would be tax-deductible, or is the membership fee not a charitable gift but something that you purchase and receive value in return? I imagine that country chapters of OSHCA, if/when they are formed, will be be able to pursue tax-deductible status - the difficulty and rules for achieving this vary a lot from country to country - it will be up to the people who are organising each country chapter. For the meantime, though, you won't be able to claim a tax deduction on your US$10 membership fee, should you chose to join. Tim C Joseph Dal Molin wrote: OSHCA meetings have always been open to anyone. While there has been much progress without OSHCA and there are other open source working groups imbedded in organizations like AMIA etc. there is a need for an open international forum whose focus is solely open source in health and provides a place both in the form of meetings and online venues for what I perceive to be islands of activity to interact and cross pollenate. This will evolve into concrete initiatives where there is sufficient itch to scratch and motivation to actI would definitely vote for promoting open source interoperability as a good starting pointit would be truly ironic if open source projects reinvented lock-in. Where OSHCA goes from here will be up to its membership and the goal creating a formal organization will allow the scope of what OSHCA can accomplisy, through funding etc. to expand significantly. Joseph David Forslund wrote: Is OSHCA membership intended to simply be an issue of who can vote on decisions by the organization or does it entail other matters? Most organizations allow for observers and external contributors, but those can't vote on organizational decisions. For example, can anyone participate/attend an OSHCA meeting (subject to possible meeting fees which are distinct from membership) or only paying members? Will this list only be for paying OSHCA members? So far the benefits of this list on discussion of technical issues is valuable, but I don't yet see the benefits of joining OSHCA. There are other open source organizations that are at least as valuable being a member of. I don't know what OSHCA will be doing. I would think that promoting interoperability amongst open source systems would be a good task to do, but I don't see that on the list. We have been fairly successful championing and promoting open source in healthcare without OSHCA. I need to understand the benefit of joining the organization. The cost isn't the issue; the time and effort is. Thanks, Dave Forslund SPONSORED LINKS Software distribution
Re: [openhealth] OSHCA inaugural meeting - important announcement
Will Ross wrote: Molly, I'm sorry for failing to review the OSHCA 2.0 release document sooner in the quickly moving process that is underway. Let's just replace all of my suggestions with the single observation that the Protem Committee has assigned itself tremendous authority and is ramming things through on such a rapid timeline that those of us in the rank and file are being asked to waive all concerns so as not to derail the process. Will, the community gave a similar mandate end of 2002, in fact a much stronger one for OSHCA to be incorporated and one of the reasons given by one of the iBOD members is that there was no time frame for OSHCA's incorporation even after one year had passed. I took a different approach when I offered to get OSHCA registered. I put a time frame to it and I would like to think that whoever is interested in the processes would monitor the list regularly for updates and respond accordingly. I'm sorry to sound that I'm ramming things through but I need to keep to timelines for the deliverables that I promise. I will make no effort to slow the process down, but I will observe that software developed under the same conditions is generally suboptimal. One of the primary benefits I enjoy from open source software is not that it can be assembled hastily against an aggressive deadline, without regard to quality, but that it is developed under a process that can accommodate rapid corrections and constant improvements to achieve a high standard of quality assurance and usability. The analogy you gave above is, I think, inappropriate here. We're assembling a group of interested individuals to agree to a constitution for registering an organisation. This is not software development. I like the early beta version of your 2.0 OSHCA project, but I am disappointed in the bugginess of RC1. My preference is for an elastic release date combined with very high QA standards. Perhaps in the long drought since the demise of OSHCA 1.0 we have become over eager to reanimate the beast. Unfortunately the elasticity of the earlier attempt to register led to the resignations of several iBOD members and OSHCA's demise (almost), hence its resurrection. I had also made it very clear when I took the responsibility for its registration that this is a new initiative and not a continuation of the previous effort. Tim had addressed your points appropriately since. Since I have no real standing in this process I will leave my observation where it is. Will, I actually invited you to join the protem in a private e-mail but as you're aware I did not get a reply, so I moved on and requested for help from someone else. There will be the democratic process of elections after OSHCA's registration. I hope you will become a member so that you can participate in defining OSHCA's future and not turn it into a beast. The constitution is a living document. It will really be a marvellous achievemnent for the protem if a sprinkling of individuals across the globe agrees to adopt it as a start. I don't expect a majority across the globe to agree to all of the articles. The variations can be articulated in the chapters, subsequently What the protem is doing now is just preparatory work towards getting OSHCA registered. Molly With best regards, [wr] - - - - - - - - On Apr 22, 2006, at 3:53 PM, Molly Cheah wrote: Hi Will, Your suggestions below pose a dilemma for me because of the time frame. As you're aware, in preparation for this inaugural meeting in 2 days' time, the preparatory process to arrive at an acceptable constitution went through 7 draft revisions, most of the work was done by the protem committee and somewhere along the way, draft4 was uploaded to this list from 7th April announced to the list on the 8th April and made available to everyone for seven (7) days for their input. Procedures were laid out in my e-mail to the list dated April 8th when I announced the upload of the draft constitution. All accetable input and changes made had been documented in the build status in build history and every draft is available. As I said repeatedly the constitution is a living document but somewhere along the line for drafting it, there has to be a cutoff point for acceptance of input. Can I suggest that these be proposed for amendments after OSHCA's registration i.e. during subsequent AGMs? Molly SPONSORED LINKS Software distribution Salon software Medical software Software association Software jewelry Software deployment YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "openhealth" on
[openhealth] Re: OSHCA Membership question
--- In openhealth@yahoogroups.com, David Forslund [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: This would be worthwhile. Interoperability is far broader than open source, but FOSS could set the kind of example that is required. This may (must?) involve working with those not involved in open source but who may be committed to interoperability. Thanks, Dave --snipped-- Hi Dave, I found an organisation on google search which might be of interest to you. They seem to be committed to interoperability issues (see http://www.nahit.org/cms/index.php?option=com_contenttask=viewid=220Itemid=122 ) as you are. The following are a couple of links in case you're interested in joining them: 1) Membership dues http://www.nahit.org/cms/index.php?option=com_contenttask=viewid=25Itemid=140 2) Value for money considerations http://www.nahit.org/cms/index.php?option=com_contenttask=viewid=14Itemid=121 Hope that helps. Cheers, Juliana YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "openhealth" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
Re: [openhealth] Re: OSHCA Membership question
I have to agree with Dave here - I see it as problematic if OSHCA doesn't see interoperability as a key issue. FOSS just gets you applications and components. Interoperable FOSS gets you integrated, componentised systems and environments. This is where the cost advantage of FOSS will be shown in the future. It is worth considering the ObjectWeb approach (http://www.objectweb.org). - thomas -- ___ CTO Ocean Informatics (http://www.OceanInformatics.biz) Research Fellow, University College London (http://www.chime.ucl.ac.uk) Chair Architectural Review Board, openEHR (http://www.openEHR.org) YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "openhealth" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
Re: [openhealth] Re: OSHCA Membership question
I do too. so let's all work to make it a key area of focus for OSHCA. Joseph Thomas Beale wrote: I have to agree with Dave here - I see it as problematic if OSHCA doesn't see interoperability as a key issue. FOSS just gets you applications and components. Interoperable FOSS gets you integrated, componentised systems and environments. This is where the cost advantage of FOSS will be shown in the future. It is worth considering the ObjectWeb approach (http://www.objectweb.org). - thomas -- ___ CTO Ocean Informatics (http://www.OceanInformatics.biz) Research Fellow, University College London (http://www.chime.ucl.ac.uk) Chair Architectural Review Board, openEHR (http://www.openEHR.org) YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS * Visit your group openhealth http://groups.yahoo.com/group/openhealth on the web. * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/. . YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "openhealth" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
Re: [openhealth] Areas for cooperation and collaboration for OpenHealth
Tim.Churches wrote: Sure, no argument there - the abstractions are potentially useful. However, for a project like, say, CHITS (which is where this thread started), considerable extra work involving considerable expertise is required to convert the OMG HDTF specs from IDL form into SOAP/WSDL. That is yet another reason why these interfaces are hardly ever implemented. it shouldn't be a reason. The effort of converting the _expression_ of a well-designed spec to another (reasonable) formalism is 1% of creating the spec in the first place (involves lots of requirements and design hard work). - thomas YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "openhealth" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
Re: [openhealth] Re: OSHCA Membership question
James, Good ideaas far as VistA-Office is concerned we will be shortly be working through the CCHIT/ONCHIT EHR criteria which includes interoperabilityonce we have done that we will gladly contribute/link to a common reference page. Joseph James Busser wrote: On Apr 23, 2006, at 8:23 AM, Thomas Beale wrote: I am advocating that a culture of re-use and interoperability be adopted in health FOSS. Would it be worth coaxing health FOSS producers to aggregate their interoperability approaches? Perhaps by getting them to link, from some kind of central and organized reference page, to whatever information the FOSS producers had already compiled and which might exist online? Or if it does not yet exist online, to provide a place in which to post and maintain it? YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "openhealth" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
Re: [openhealth] Re: OSHCA Membership question
Thomas Beale wrote: Tim Churches wrote: Thomas Beale wrote: I have to agree with Dave here - I see it as problematic if OSHCA doesn't see interoperability as a key issue. FOSS just gets you applications and components. Interoperable FOSS gets you integrated, componentised systems and environments. This is where the cost advantage of FOSS will be shown in the future. It is worth considering the ObjectWeb approach (http://www.objectweb.org). http://www.objectweb.org%29. No-one has suggested that interoperability is not an important issue for FOSS, although personally I don't regard it as the *only* issue. As with I don't think anyone does. Functionality, performance, security, safety, economic viability, maintainability etc are things we are already interested in. Indeed, as well as more human aspects of FOSS projects such as community, training and support resources and so on. But none of these are mentioned in the current OSHCA constitution. Hence I don't see why interoperability - which would need to be defined because it means different things to different people - should get a special mention. nearly everything, there are costs as well a benefits associated with building interoperability into software, and these have to be weighed and judgements made about what to do and when, given the inevitably finite resources and time available to any particular project. true, to an extent, and yet it is this kind of thinking that I think leads too many efforts to make the default position one where interoperability is not part of the product, but will be thought about later. There are two problems with this. Firstly, interoperability can really only be designed in at the beginning. Secondly, if there is no interoperability, there is no re-use. Hmmm, that is not categorically true. The most common mechanism for both re-use and interoperability between FOSS applications is wrapping the API of one application or system to make it available for use in another. That happens all the time for languages such as Python: someone creates a wrapper around a C library to expose its interfaces to Python. Typically, the C library was never written with integration in Python in mind, and oftn the result is an ugly but functional interface, or sometimes an extra layer is added to make the interface more Pythonic. But all of this happens as an afterthought - the C libraries are very rarely written with Python in mind - and they typically are wrapped for use in Ruby, TCL and other dynamic languages as well. Take the CHITS example. AFAIK, it was not written with any set of interoperable interfaces in mind (at least not ones which Dave Forslund would approve of). It is desirable to make CHITS interoperate with our NetEpi Analysis (NEA) data analysis tool, which also doesn't have automated application interfaces. Despite that, we will achieve our goal, entirely post-hoc, by sitting down for a day or two and writing some interface code in PHP and Python. Problem will be solved, I get to meet and work with Alvin and colleagues in Manila and will no doubt hatch plans for further collaboration, re-use and interoperability. That's still a valid approach, in my view, as a stepping stone to having the machines talk amongst themselves entirely automatically. What I am really talking about here is not how to better design a product, I am talking about engendering a culture of intoperability among FOSS producers, with the aim of making sufficient interfaces, data specifications, knowledge models etc published so that the default decisions when building something new are: * re-use existing components (because now I can see the APIs published online, I can use them directly) * only build things that are not already built (with the existing ecosystem of tools and products mapped out, I can see what is missing, what is available) * use design approaches already in use; try to fit into available paradigms I am advocating that a culture of re-use and interoperability be adopted in health FOSS. Sure. But I suspect that there is already much more of that going on than might first be apparent, particularly re-use of lower-level tools and components at the software re-engineering level. I can't think of a single health-related FOSS project that has written its own operating system, or its own database management system, or its own programming language and associated libraries, for example. A community like OSHCA could help this, in a similar way as ObjectWeb does for middleware, by providing the informational and collaborative framework of the software ecosystem. Yes, very useful things for OSHCA to do. Tim C YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "openhealth" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
Re: [openhealth] Re: OSHCA Membership question
On Mon, Apr 24, 2006 at 07:35:47AM +1000, Tim Churches wrote: I can't think of a single health-related FOSS project that has written its own operating system, or its own database management system TkFP scores on the latter or its own programming language and associated libraries The initial MUMPS as put forth by the Massachussets General Hospital, no ? Ah, wait, that wasn't FOSS, though. Karsten -- GPG key ID E4071346 @ wwwkeys.pgp.net E167 67FD A291 2BEA 73BD 4537 78B9 A9F9 E407 1346 SPONSORED LINKS Software distribution Salon software Medical software Software association Software jewelry Software deployment YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "openhealth" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
[openhealth] New file uploaded to openhealth
Hello, This email message is a notification to let you know that a file has been uploaded to the Files area of the openhealth group. File : /oshca_inaugural-meeting_notice.sxw Uploaded by : drcheah2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Description : Notice of OSHCA Inaugural Meeting on 25th April 2006 with Agenda, Procedures for participation, Resolutions to be adopted and Founding Members' Information Form You can access this file at the URL: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/openhealth/files/oshca_inaugural-meeting_notice.sxw To learn more about file sharing for your group, please visit: http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/groups/files Regards, drcheah2000 [EMAIL PROTECTED] YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "openhealth" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
Re: [openhealth] OSHCA inaugural meeting - important announcement
Dear All, In the absence of any other, I volunteer to represent Latin America Caribbean. Regards, John John L. Forman [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tecso Informática Ltda www.tecso.com.br Rua da Gloria 190/1002 Fone: (21) 2224-4643 Rio de Janeiro - Brasil Fax: (21) 2509-0023 Citando Molly Cheah [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I'm going to upload the documents for the Inaugural meeting Notice as soon as the protem committee had a chance to look at it and give me feedback. However, at this point, there is one vacancy for a protem member representing Latin America Caribbean. (By the way most of the references and names in lists used are taken from the United Nations) The people we source from Argentina, Brazil did not materialize. However, if there's anyone on this list from that region who will volunteer now, we'll give him/her priority otherwise anyone from any other region can volunteer to represent Latin America Caribbean. As you've volunteered, I don't think anyone will object to giving you preference if there is no Latin American or Caribbean volunteer. The other position is the auditor. I had to persuade Jason Tan to fill it as I couldn't find an alternative when Wayne Wilson moved to represent North America. The following volunteers were received for the Protem Committee of the organisation:- /President/ : Molly Cheah /Deputy President /: Thomas Beale /Secretary/ : Joseph dal Molin /Assistant Secretary/ : Juliana Tang /Treasurer/ : Adrian Midgley /Ordinary Committee Members/ : William Lauesen (Africa/Middle East) Nandalal Gunaratne (Asia) Katarzyna Heller (Eastern Europe Central Asia) Christian Heller (Europe) ? (Latin America Caribbean) Wayne Wilson (North America) Tim Churches (Oceania) /Honorary Auditors/ : K S Bhaskar Jason Tan Boon Teck Will Ross wrote: molly, i hope to have the opportunity to join the new entity you are quickly assembling. is the list of protem members public knowledge or are we waiting to find out? [wr] - - - - - - - - will ross project manager mendocino informatics 216 west perkins street, suite 206 ukiah, california 95482 usa 707.462.6369 [office] 707.462.5015 [fax] www.minformatics.com - - - - - - - - Getting people to adopt common standards is impeded by patents. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, BCS, 2006 - - - - - - - - Yahoo! Groups Links YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group openhealth on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. -- Archive ISP, seu parceiro na internet! http://www.archive.com.br/ SPONSORED LINKS Software distribution Salon software Medical software Software association Software jewelry Software deployment YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS Visit your group "openhealth" on the web. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
