[Gllug] OSS

[Wulf Forrester-Barker]

John <john.hearns at clustervision.com> wrote:

> Can we really let comments like this stand?
> 
> "Open Source code typically comes without ownership, support
> or maintenance. NHS infrastructure and information systems
> are critical to the delivery of quality care and therefore
> guarantees on the reliability and future maintenance of
> systems are required."

Am I right in recalling that you used to work in the NHS. If so you'll
probably have seen plenty of big, expensive, proprietary systems that
suffer from a severe lack of support. Suppliers come and go or simply
just decide that they either don't have enough customers for a
particular product or that everyone really should fork out for their
shiny new program.

Mind you, certainly within the field of web-based applications that I'm
involved with at Lewisham Hospital, we now have several key projects
that are largely or entirely open-source based. I think it would be fair
to say that they are at least as flexible and reliable as the
closed-source stuff still used in many areas.

Wulf


-- 
Wulf Forrester-Barker, webmaster
http://www.lewisham.nhs.uk/


wulf.f-b at uhl.nhs.uk

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