[kwlug-disc] Continued: OpenSource Me!]

[unsolicited]

The market has always been there. I can only imagine the benefits, let 
alone cost savings, if all medical practices were on the same system. 
Just imagine if Oscar became the Microsoft Word of medical offices.

 From this thread, it seems there are at least 3 basic problems:
- the package is not easily implementable. Likely, aside from saying 
'install', the problems include documentation and surrounding files.
- however good or bad the actual software, the FOSS packaging, 
including surrounding bits that make a package get from programmer's 
hands to nurse's keyboard, appears to be outside of the developer's 
world view. Given it's McMaster, it carries a fair bit of credibility 
of having appropriate functionality, it's just getting it into the 
user's hands, and afterwards.
- getting it in front of, and into, an office. Marketing. User 
acceptance, and critical mass. Changing your prime business software 
is a daunting idea in the first place - going with "What the heck's an 
Oscar?" is still a leap of faith. The poor packaging making the leap 
look farther. It needs to be plug and play, which is still a far 
fetched concept for most when everyone still thinks they have unique 
needs and requirements. This niche is application driven - hardware, 
let alone OS, becomes an issue.

It's all these things that made me ask the question earlier in the 
thread: Are there any good references to this stuff? Coding is one 
thing - there are a LOT of other fiddly bits to take care of before 
code becomes a 'successful' package.

Dave Cramer wrote, On 12/26/2008 11:51 AM:
> 
>     I wish that somebody had the inclination and
>     skills to make this easier to use, with good upgrade paths and stable
>     releases and a consistent place to look for documentation. Maybe the
>     CAISI project is filling this gap, but honestly I don't know enough
>     about the ecosystem to understand this for sure.
> 
> 
> I have the skills, I've tried once to find the inclination. In my 
> opinion it requires a complete rewrite. Do you think the market has 
> increased that much in the last few months ?
> 
> Dave