VistA an example of FOIA, public domain and FLOSS in actionRe: US Govt Licensing (was licensing)

Open source opens up a whole world of possibilities for software
developed with government funds. One of the great ironies is that in the
land of MS and as imperfect as the US system is, (BTW I am a
Canadian...so this isn't flag waving) it has produced one of the world's
most remarkable "seeds" for an open source based technology transfer
strategy...VistA the integrated hospital information system developed by
the Veteran's Administration.

VistA has been available through FOIA for many years (easily I might add
because there have been so many requests)...there have been some
implementations outside of the VA such as in the Indian Health Service
and abroad...but not much more. There is a small community of developers
that work with it and in particular its foundation software (MUMPS). But
what has given it a real spark of life in the last couple of years is
the application of the open source model to VistA by an evolving new
community of users and developers. WorldVistA is a not for profit we
have formed to provide stewardship of the code and coordination of
effort.

There is still a lot to learn and a lot to do...but what is clear is
that the combination of the FLOSS model with taxpayer funded software
provides a very rich alternative for both economic development and
technology transfer...especially for education, health care and public
administration. Having spent the first half of my career in the public
sector the other huge benefit I see is the empowerment it offers public
sector employees whose creativity and energy have IMHO been
stifled....but I digress.

A better understanding is needed of the value of open source as a tech
transfer strategy and as a fine tuning of the public domain approach.

Joseph

-- 
Joseph Dal Molin <[email protected]>
e-cology corporation


On Tue, 2003-10-21 at 10:24, Taran Rampersad wrote:
> Jan C. Depner wrote:
> 
> >'Nuther point - not all software developed by a contractor for the US
> >government is copyright by the company.  The government can specify that
> >in the contract.
> >
> >Jan
> >
> So the infrastructure is there, but if the software is not copyright the 
> company - it defaults to public domain, right?
> 
> Taran