Re: Contact to www.apfelkraut.org (Was: Metaproject: Debian Med tasks) (fwd)
[Second occurance of a mail, which did not reached the mailing list ... hmmm
perhaps because it was sended from a different "From:" than I'm subsrcibed
here - but list policy sais anybody can post]
----- Forwarded message from Andreas Tille <andreas@fam-tille.de> -----
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 2010 15:54:46 +0100
From: Andreas Tille <andreas@fam-tille.de>
To: Debian Med Project List <debian-med@lists.debian.org>
Subject: Re: Contact to www.apfelkraut.org (Was: Metaproject: Debian Med
tasks) (fwd)
Hi again,
next fully quoted mail, I will continue with my own comments
in my next mail.
Kind regards
Andreas.
----- Forwarded message from Holger Schmuhl <holger.schmuhl@googlemail.com> -----
Subject: Re: Metaproject: Debian Med tasks
From: Holger Schmuhl <holger.schmuhl@googlemail.com>
Date: Sat, 30 Jan 2010 13:57:48 +0100
To: Andreas Tille <andreas@fam-tille.de>
X-Spam_score: -2.8
On 29.01.2010, at 21:52, Andreas Tille wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 29, 2010 at 09:02:40PM +0100, Holger Schmuhl wrote:
>>> It would be great if you would have a look to the link I gave above and tell us, what you think, if it is helpful for you or whether you have hints for enhancements.
>> What I like is:
>>
>> + it is really helpful, assuming that I am someone looking for a software within a certain field of application and wanting to know it there is an easy way to get it up and running
>
> Yes. IMHO this is the largest advantage over all the existing *lists*
> of software: You just can get start the applications (provided you have
> access to a Debian installation somehow).
>
>> + that you list pure FOSS, you do not have any projects that are shareware or other pseudo free closed source stuff, but I suppose that is in general a characteristic of Debian.
>
> Yes. My idea was simple: Free Medical Software is a niche application.
> Wee need to plug in into a large and solid system like Debian and gain
> advantage of all the good features without reinventing anything.
>
>> The Wikipedia Medical FOSS lists gets sometimes really flooded with somehow free but non-open source projects ... and searching in SourceForge is a bit exhausting, as there are already too many ...
>
> ... and you have no idea which of them are good investments in the
> future and not dead / unmaintained before you get it installed the first
> time.
>
>> + additional parameters that are listed per project, absolutely useful ... especially: license type, if it is already available as official .deb and if so which version, path to code repository, responsible person etc.
>
> That's because it is sooo simple to obtain this information. There is a
> large database (Ultimate Debian Database) which stores all the
> information. I just have to select all needed parameters from our
> list of files...
>
>> + the screenshots are good for a first impression, especially for those that do not want to read all the documentation
>
> Yes. BTW, wee need people who do more screenshots. If it happens
> that you are using any application which is lacking a screenshot -
> please upload it to http://screenshots.debian.net/. After some
> days delay these will automatically propagated to the database and
> become avialable on the tasks pages.
>
>> - 'popcon' is the "Debian Popularity Contest" (I looked it up because I did not know it), I would add for Non-Debians maybe a better label, so to be able to understand it at once, like just 'Popularity' ...
>
> Good hint. So the footnote marked by the * was too easy to overlook,
> right?
Right, I missed it as it is quite small ;-)
>
>> - maybe to list the client type per project (mainly "web-based" vs. "native") could also be a valuable info for the user
>
> We do not have this information in a structured way. Sometimes it is
> part of the description of a package but even if I like the idea in
> principle I do not see an easy way to realise this.
>
>> In general I have quite some ideas about how to enhance my list (if I would have the time beside my 'normal' job ;-) ) ... maybe this could be also interesting for the Debian-Med task list or some joined efforts (?):
>
> The idea to join forces came to me before I contacted you. ;-)
So ... where to start?
>
>> - move my content to a real DB and dynamic web pages, no flat HTML file anymore ...
>
> Yes. Flat files become unmaintainable once you have a certain amount of
> data. That's why I really cared for using the structured information
> available in the Debian database as much as possible. In principle I
> just list the names of the programs I want to see on the web page and
> I'm finished (at least for the already packaged software).
>
>> - add a tagging feature: there are meanwhile many projects that are hard to put in a single category. Some have features of an EMR, a PACS, a LIS and/or even a hospital management system ... so where to put them and how can somebody find it who is looking for at least two features in one system.
>
> I perfectly see the problem. We tackle it that way that we list one
> package which might be useful for more categories in each of them. The
> idea behind this is that if a user is interested in one specific
> category he is served best if he savely can assume that he will find all
> packages which are relevant. So we try to fit the user view. (BTW, this
> topic was discussed several time on related mailing lists of Debian Pure
> Blends - Debian Med is one of them as well as Debian Science and others.)
>
>> - with the use of tags, one could offer a similar functionality like http://alternativeto.net/, you know this one?
>
> Not yet ... interesting.
>
>> Just give an application name and it will give you a list of similar projects. In case you want to fight with commercial/proprietary software vendors (like my current employer) you could even add their systems to such a DB. Let's say I am the CIO of a hospital and want to replace my system XY, I can give the name and can find FOSS projects with similar functionality there.
>
> This is somehow like Amazons: People who have bought this book also
> bought that / people who visited this page bought this or an other book.
> Some research inside Debian packages was done in the way: People who
> installed this package also installed that package. There was a talk
> at Debian COnference 7 in in Edinburgh - unfortunately this did not
> ended in a practically usable service.
>
>> - give a project specific link where users can get support (leading to the official user/project forum)
>>
>> - available interfaces to other FOSS projects
>>
>> - list if the project is already available via the official package repository of the distribution of my choice. Beside Debian there are also packaging efforts within OpenSUSE and Fedora, although they are just at the beginning ...
>
> I would welcome cooperation to other distributions. While I do not know
> others than Debian personally I would be happy to share experiences and
> knowledge.
I am in loose contact with Susmit Shannigrahi, the leader of the Fedora Medical group (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/FedoraMedical). They are just starting and identifying the first projects to package. I am pretty sure they are quite happy about any help they can get. And I suppose it is similar for OpenSUSE.
I mean a vision could be to have just a single 'list' on the web. Information like project description, license type, links to support-forum/documentation & publications (usage reports), screenshots, activity status etc. are of use to all (Debian, Fedora, OpenSUSE) and can be gathered & maintained in a collaborative effort. Additionally we could have a distro specific 'section' which is used for packaging coordination and stuff like that.
>
>> - give project specific activity information: last update, frequency of releases ... is the project still alive?
>
> This is *very* important information and a real problem in medical
> software. You implicitely can see this on the tasks pages of you look
> at the versions button. If you have an unchanged version number over
> several Debian releases you know that the project is dead.
>
>> - list of reference sites or at least publications that tell something about practical experiences with the project
>
> We are currently working on the publication issue to insert this
> information into the packages itself in a structured way (I could send
> links to the discussion if needed).
In case I found some I added it to my list (freemedsw.apfelkraut.org): Publications are labeled by "Userful <book icon>:" ... but I do not have so many.
And yes, please send me the link to the discussion.
>
>> - stretch goal: list companies that offer professional support for it
>>
>> So far ... Schöne Grüße aus München,
>
> Ätsch, wir haben im Harz mehr Schnee, wie mir eine Komililtonin, die
> in München sitzt gerade verraten hat. ;-)
Glaube so langsam haben wir hier aufgeholt, aber der Brocken ist nur schwer zu übertrumpfen.
>
> Ich habe bewußt auch mal in Englisch geantwortet, denn dann könnte ich
> die Diskussion auch mal an unsere Mailingliste weiterleiten. Ich wollte
> Dich nur vorher um Erlaubnis fragen, ob Du was dagegen hast. Es wäre
> Schade, wenn wir eventuell gute Ideen in privaten Mailboxen "verrotten"
> ließen.
Du kannst unsere Diskussion sehr gerne an die Mailingliste weiterleiten bzw. können wir sie auch dort fortsetzen!
Schönen Gruß,
Holger
www.apfelkraut.org
----- End forwarded message -----
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