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Re: [Gnumed-devel] How much does GNumed cost ?


From: Jim Busser
Subject: Re: [Gnumed-devel] How much does GNumed cost ?
Date: Tue, 05 Jan 2010 09:18:44 -0800

On 2010-01-05, at 6:42 AM, Dave Cramer wrote:

> ...
> My point was that only the copyright holder can initiate the
> enforcement. Agents can of course do the actual enforcement.
> 
> I was actually surprised to find this out. Ironically I was aware that
> someone was breaching the GPL with the OSCAR project and not even the
> client has the right to initiate enforcement, only the copyright
> holders. AFAICT, this has some serious implications wrt ownership of
> the code. For instance who (or what entity) is the copyright holder of
> GNUMed ? The individuals who wrote the code ? If so what happens if
> one of them ceases (for what ever reason) to be interested in the
> project ? I think that some careful consideration needs to be paid to
> keeping the ownership of the code clear.

I have been very cognizant of the above as I realized that Canada's Health 
Protection Branch took a position that is now causing distress in declaring 
EMRs to be a "health device" that may henceforth only be "sold/distributed/made 
available" in this country by an owner or manufacturer or other "responsible 
party" that has both developed and *PAID TO BE CERTIFIED* by a suitable ISO 
certifier.

I think we are a lot like Debian (link below). I think we might do well to be 
under the umbrella of the same SPI (as we may not be acceptable as our focus is 
more specific than the public; I would counter-argue the public as an important 
beneficiary and the public may eventually use a "patient client").

Even so, I would make the case that we should ask the historical contributors 
to pre-approve the signing over of their ownership to a yet-to-be-created 
non-profit organization, with the transfer of ownership to be effective at the 
point where a majority of current-at-the-time individuals with CVS write-access 
vote in favor. Until such time, they would remain the owners of the respective 
code contributed,

        http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/ch-contributing.en.html (13.3)
        http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution#item-3 (item 9)
        http://www.debian.org/News/1998/19981029.en.html
                (stands to be corrected in that only US-based donations
                seem eligible for charitable donation status unless the
                host country would accept to so-recognize them
                - they could still be a business deduction
        http://www.debian.org/trademark.en.html
        http://www.debian.org/News/1998/19980306a.en.html

-- Jim Busser





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