openEHR transparency

This is a wikipage spawned from a mail-converstion that probably does not belong on the technical or clinical list.

Todo: add link to mail archive

On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 04:34, Koray Atalag wrote:
> I don't understand how the terms "vendor lock-in",
> "behind doors" etc. are associated with Ocean
> - I see it as a social service organisation rather
> than a commercial entity by the way (tongue)

Erik Sundvall replied:
That view is not completely shared everywhere. I agree that Ocean Informatics contributes tremendously to openEHR. Leading, starting and contributing to open projects is nowadays something many commercial companies do including gigants like IBM and Sun. The reason is not just altruistic, rather it is both a kind of efficient marketing of other related services and a way of tapping in to a wider community of resources in a way benefiting all involved parties. How to do this open/commercial mix in a good way is really not easy, Sun has for example had some problems with this.

Koray, the "behind doors"-thing I think regard e.g. the widely circulating rumours that the OpenEHR-fondation and/or Ocean has invited some organisations and/or companies to a meeting regarding the "commersialisation of openEHR" or something and possibly to the fact that the Foundation Board seems only accountable to itself. I don't really know exactly what different people know or think, but I agree that a discussion would be valuable.

The openEHR community is wonderful and contributions from companies, organisations, universities etc. are fantastic. I am sure that potential tensions can be solved and misunderstandings can be cleared if discussed openly. (On the wikipage maybe?) I also understand that there are real issues regarding funding that need to be solved, and hope that the whole community will sooner or later be entrusted to listen in to and contribute to those discussions.