Patient OS is trying to fracture the FOSS community

Hi,

         Recently the Patient OS project has been posting to this forum. Patient OS is years behind several other projects in the FOSS community but continues to present itself as a ligitimate FOSS EHR project. To prevent Patient OS from fracturing the community I have written an article detailing what Patient OS is doing, and how it violates the values of the community. This article is entitled FOSS Sin: Pointless Duplication of Effort

          It should be noted that this step was taken only after considerable effort was taken to resolve the matter privately.

 Regards,

Fred Trotter

Welcome to the business world.  Large EMR vendors probably say the same about small vendors.

ftrotter:

FOSS Sin: Pointless Duplication of Effort

Pointless ?  That's your opinion.  I found Patient OS to be interesting, but definitely incomplete.  Many of the current generation of FOSS EMRs are terrible.  I am excited about Patient OS and another legit FOSS EMR should be welcomed by you.  Competition = Good.

This is arrogance in the extreme.

I can understand we some might consider this arrogant. I can also understand how some might question my right to make the determination about which projects are legitimate. But at least tell me "why" you think it is arrogant, so that I can reply. Also feel free to criticize how I determine what a ligitimate project is, so that I can defend that. 

Note  "large vendors say this about small vendors" is not relevant. This is a comparison of "projects". I have no financial association of any kind with either project. (I am not a Java guy)

Regards,

-FT 

You're assuming the right to judge other people's decisions to work on free software.

You're assuming that developers who have joined the caulton pos project are somehow incapable of making a decision for themselves as to how best spend their free time.

You're assuming that caultop pos will never be better than the tolven project.

You're assuming that people don't want a choice.

It's none of your business.

You're assuming the right to judge other people's decisions to work on free software.

How so? If someone wanted to join PatientOS after reading my article, I would have no problem with that. I would only have a problem with PatientOS pretending to be something that it is not and attracting developers based on false pretenses. I once wasted a year of my spare time working with a FOSS project that mislead me about its direction, capabilities and project managment practices. That amounts to thousands of hours of my life down the drain because someone lied to me about a codebase. I am now in the position to help other developers avoid the same mistake, is it arrogant to warn them?

You're assuming that developers who have joined the caulton pos project are somehow incapable of making a decision for themselves as to how best spend their free time.

No, I am just assuming that the would want all of the information when they make that decision.

You're assuming that people don't want a choice.

Yes and no. People want real choices. They want to choose between things when they can understand the underlying implications of the choice. A person who reads my article and chooses Patient OS is making an informed choice.

Look I know that I sound arrogant sometimes, and I apologize for that. It is more a function of my role within the community than my attitudes about life. Believe me, before putting out an article that attacked a project in this way, I had several gut-check conversations with other wise community members (who keep me from saying alot). When my informal council decides that something really is a problem, articles like this are the result.

Does that help explain my motivations behind the article?

-FT

Fred,

You are getting down to such fine points of order, that I do not see the wrong.

I am trying to understand. Can you restate your case in one simple sentence?

Not really. That is why I wrote an entire article on the subject. I can try to shorten it some though.

Patient OS is a reduntant project. Other projects, not just Tolven, do the same things, and are already running in live environments. It is OK to have new FOSS projects, in fact we encourage it, when there is some benifit to the new project. But a new project is not welcome if it works in exactly the same way, using the same language, with no substantive design benifit, as a pre-existing, mature, popular and deployed project. In short Patient OS is a dangerous distraction to legitimate projects.  If the idea of Patient OS is appealing, then you want to work with Tolven. If the idea of Open Source is appealing then there are about 5 projects that you should be aware of. I can think of at least 10 projects that are ahead of Patient OS. Yet Patient OS is constantly advertising on this forum, distracting from more legitimate projects. 

I did not want to call Patient OS out. If I have done so in a fashion that is not clear then please let me know so that I can correct that. But I am afraid that I will not change my position based on comments regarding my "right" to protect my community. I am in a position to protect the community, so I am. 

ftrotter:

I had several gut-check conversations with other wise community members (who keep me from saying alot). When my informal council decides that something really is a problem, articles like this are the result.

Of course, because you consulted people who think like you.

Now if you have consulted others here, you would get an entirely different reaction.  Ready to write another article?

Anyway, dictating how people should spend their free time irregardless of the justifications sounds like a communist/religious manifesto to me. 

Of course, because you consulted people who think like you. Now if you have consulted others here, you would get an entirely different reaction.  Ready to write another article?

 On issues like this I tend to listen to people who make signifigant FOSS contributions. We do have community values and rules, and you are right, we often agree. But think alike? probably not.

 

dictating how people should spend their free time...

 It is a good thing I never did that. Instead I just tried to inform people about what the implications of their choices might be. 

 -FT

Two old guys, friends for many years, are sitting on a park bench, and one says to the other, "You know I feel like a million bucks."

"What, you're taking a vitamin?" says his friend.

"No," he answers, "I just got a new hobby, and my hobby makes me feel like a million bucks."

"So tell, what's your hobby?" asks his friend.

"Well," he answers, "every morning, I take a gallon glass jar down to the agricultural supply store and I buy some bees, put them in the jar, put the jar on my desk, and I sit and watch the bees. And that's my hobby!"

His firend makes a disgusted face and replies, "You sit there and watch a bunch of bees? You call that a hobby? What do you do, punch holes in the top of the jar so the bees can get air to breath?"

"No," he says, "I don't punch any holes in the top!"

His friend yells at him, "Are you crazy?!? If you don't punch holes in the top, the bees will DIE!!!"

"So let them die," he says, "IT'S JUST A HOBBY!!!!" 

The current generation of FOSS EMRs are weak.  Maybe PatientOS, having picked a Next Generation platform, will improve upon the clunky browser based slowness that has typified the current generation.

FOSS IS LOOMING- THERE IS NO RESISTANCE