[nycbug-talk] interesting read

[alex at pilosoft.com]

On Sat, 21 May 2005, Dru wrote:

> On Sat, 21 May 2005 alex at pilosoft.com wrote:
> 
> > On Sat, 21 May 2005, Dru wrote:
> >
> >> http://homepage.mac.com/yaztromo/iblog/C721686556/E320292175/
> > Frankly, in healthcare, for life-critical applications, there isn't
> > all that much benefit for going with open sores.
> >
> > I'll ask you this: Will you trust your life to an open-source
> > application?
> 
> Let's keep in mind that the trustworthiness of a life-critical
> application has everything to do with how that program was written and
> absolutely nothing to do with the license under which it was released.
Okay. Back to original question. What is the benefit for you to be able to 
recompile source code for your pacemaker?

> As an American I'd rather see my medical tax dollars spent on creating a
> national healthcare program than being used to pay for software
> licensing.
Somewhat orthogonal. Healthcare IT is not all healthcare technology. It 
might be a sizable chunk, but its not all. Sure, open source may make 
sense there. But the point is, healthcare is special because *people may 
die*. Healthcare IT is not special - nobody going to die if your insurance 
company processes the claim late.
 
> As a Canadian, I'd rather see my medical tax dollars spent on paying
> doctors (in my area 1 in 5 persons has a family doctor) and reducing the
> waiting times for emergency rooms and surgeries than being used to pay
> for software licensing.
> 
> Go back to the original URL. Open source is not a product.
Did I say it was? I said, "open source licensing is not beneficial for a
life-critical application".

-alex