gnu compatibility (was Re: [Gnumed-devel] When & where to present GNUmed...)

[J Busser]

At 7:06 PM +0800 11/27/05, Syan Tan wrote:
> it doesn't look very gnu compatible or open sourced.

What has gnu compatibility to do with it? I agree that the 
*principle* would be to select / use software licensed , where 
possible, under the preferred open source licenses. But if there is 
nothing suitable I   believe the prohibitions against using anything 
else are specific and few (but still important). And please correct 
me if I am wrong, mine is only a "stab" at it:

The "other" software
- cannot put a wrapper around the GPL software giving the illusion of 
authorship / ownership
- cannot blend/use/copy any of the open sourced code into their own code base
- (probably) cannot ship / distribute them as a "coupled" application

But if the databases were directly accessible, there is no reason the 
"other" software would be in license violation to directly query, or 
write to, an open source EMR database.

In the case of GNUmed, where we discourage (or somehow disallow?) 
direct access, there is no reason either GNUmed or the "other" 
software cannot pass data to each other. It seemed to me Karsten had 
added, to gnumed, the ability to be accessed by (or to access) 
third-party software, but I can't find that information, not in the 
archive, anyway (may be on the "downed" wiki).