Re: [Gnumed-devel] Re: meditux - compromed

[Sebastian Hilbert]

On Sunday 06 May 2007 23:35, Andreas Tille wrote:
> On Sun, 6 May 2007, Sebastian Hilbert wrote:
> > This is nothing to be done by an open source project but rather by a
> > service company.
>
> What about a service company that writes Open Source software?  Just an
> idea - your sentence sounded like a contradiction between "Open Source
> Project" and "service company".

Sure. Just wanted to say that this service doesn't come for free. Or at least 
it's not your typical open source work.
>
> > Historically all 20+ software providers in Germany produced their
> > own implementation of a billing framework and are troubled by supporting
> > them for years to come.
>
> I wonder whether all these companies are happyly reinventing the wheel
> instead of starting a common effort to just get rid of terribly stupid
> work by using a common source base for this specific problem.

They have been and are reinventing the wheel.
>
> > OpenSource / code sharing is a concept that takes some time to be
> > understood and accepted. Therefore the idea of a billing module is
> > certainly appealing but I cannot expect traditional companies to do that
> > for me. They perceive that as a risk to their business model.
>
> I succeded once to convince a representative of a company that
> produces medical devices.  We should not assume that these people
> do not have a common sense.  It's just that we have to try to find
> a reasonable language to explain the idea carefully.

As I said it is a process. There certainly are people who don't dismiss the 
idea upfront. It's a long way from there to something we can use. But there 
is progress.
>
> > I have been in contact with 20 or so commercial vendors of which 3 have
> > something like a encapsulated module but none has an API to talk to.
>
> Well, you obviousely have the experience and might be I'm just to
> naive.
No you are not. 3 vendors have interest and have something that might work. 
But it takes constant bugging to have them allocate ressources to codebase 
changes just to make it work for an FOSS project. It's hard for them to plan 
the break even.

Sebastian
-- 
Sebastian Hilbert 
Leipzig / Germany
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