[nycbug-talk] interesting read

[George R.]

alex at pilosoft.com wrote:
> On Sat, 21 May 2005, Matthew Terenzio wrote:
> 
> 
>>I don't understand the whole argument. If the general consensus in the
>>Healthcare industry was that a certain product was best and it was open
>>source, I'd trust my life to it. If it was closed source, I would too.
>>There is no necessary relationship between license and quality, but many
>>here probably feel that peer review makes better software. It's just
>>probably not that likely that a community would grow around a pacemaker
>>product because they are all building real important things like
>>Podcasters. : )
> 
> Finally someone who doesn't have knee-jerk reaction "open source good,
> proprietary bad". I'm somewhat surprised to response from this list
> regarding my comment about open-source/healthcare - I'd expect that much
> flame if it was nylxs, not nycbug ;)

I'm not Mr. S., and none of us are knee-jerk RMS- (the other 'S' guy) 
types.  I think you're well aware of that. . .

But I think in most of our minds, what we'd assume about medical 
software is what we'd also take from our buddy Mr. S (chneier) on the 
topic for cryptographic algorithms.  Peer review is better for critical 
applications.  Lots of authorities reviwing the code would be good.

Software in the medical industry, I'd assume, only reflects the 
horrifying state of the industry itself. . . the 45 million or so 
without healthcare, $20 for a Tylenol, etc.

The last thing an industry like that needs is real independent 
oversight, and this would include software.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, HIPAA, 
but come on. . .

More specifically, I would feel more comfortable with a sane development 
model, open or closed source, unlike Linux land's method, or lack of.  I 
don't want Joe Schmoe who happened to get some hack to reboot my 
pacemaker.  I'd want a stricter model with earned commit access.  Give 
me documentation and a logic.

And finally, Ike, you can only have nonprivileged user access to my 
pacemaker. . . no sudo for you. ;-'

Oh, yeah, I'm on vacation. . . Key West is humid. . . but free wireless 
in the hotel. . . but haven't had a chance to get my ThinkPad's wireless 
up for FBSD.  So I'm on the XP partition. . .  Did notice that bge0 
(BroadCom) interface came up with a cvsup and rebuild Thursday or so. . 
   I'll let everyone know about my experience (project evil or other) 
with the wireless when I get a chance.

g