Re: Installing VistA
On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, K.S. Bhaskar wrote:
> Of course, to use VistA in production will require that an institution
> spend money either to hire an expert to configure it to their need,
> and/or train their own people to use it. Free software like VistA
> means a freedom to use, and not a freedom from cost.
Well, we always talk about "Free Speach" and not "Free Beer". :)
> Setting up a demo will also involve some cost (to hire expertise). In
> a company, this would be part of a marketing budget, but open source
> free software does not have a marketing budget. Funding a VistA demo
> is an opportunity for someone who has contacts with a Government and/or
> a charitable foundation to unearth a small amount of money.
>
> There are people who make a living out of installing and configuring
> VistA, and they can be found at Hardhats (http://hardhats.org) and its
> mailing list. Interestingly, VistA has a good database management
> system as well (called Fileman), and there are people who have used
> Fileman to set up all sorts of applications outside healthcare, such as
> a jewellery wholesale ERP system, an aircraft tracking and display
> system, etc.
To make my point clear here: I do not want to stop Hardhat experts
to earn money when building Debian packages from VISTA. My intention
is perhaps to help Hardhat-people even more money by providing a method
to let them spead up their work by an easy to use installation method.
Users of VISTA would be bad advised if they would refuse the help of
experts but I can not see any reason why the experts would refuse
a solid and robust installation and upgrade procedure as it could be
provided by Debian packages.
> [KSB] In my view, a good way to make a demo would be to take a snapshot
> of a directory of VistA on GT.M, and put VistA and GT.M on a bootable
> CD with something like Knoppix (http://knoppix.org) which will work
> even if someone has a Windows PC. When the CPRS GUI is ported to Kylix
> (which will hopefully become available in 2003), the GUI can also be on
> the CD.
A Knoppix based Debian-Med CD is planned (as announced here). I would
really prefer to install and update this CD cleanly with Debian packages
and not putting some stuff on it by hand. This would be extra workload
for volunteers, i.e. I see no good future for this procedure.
Kind regards
Andreas.
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