Dear Eric,thanks for your interest in the Med-e-Tel Open Source Village and congratulations to the upcoming FreeMedForms and FreeDiams 1.0 release!
The organizers of the Med-e-Tel are not able to provide free-registration for representatives of non-profit, community driven open source projects. Why? I am not sure about but I suppose the reasons can be found mainly in the 'academic' type of conference ... like organizational efforts, review process of 'academic' submissions, printed and published proceedings, invited speakers, expected free food, etc. that all need to be covered ... and the idea to equally treat its participants.
Generally speaking at least in the field of Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) for health care we have quite a problem to bring together the provider/vendor and customer ... if we use these words also in a non-commercial context.
So a bit (maybe too) simplified: On one hand the potential FLOSS users ("customers") like doctors, health IT admins and researchers are mainly attending 'academic' conferences to catch up with the 'State of the Art' and to disseminate their own work. Further more they are expected to have publications and to do networking within their society. Both mean reputation, a measure to receive further funding and an not-to-miss opportunity to find partners for future research projects. The FLOSS developers/community members ("providers/vendors") are hindered to participate due to the typical high registration fees. On the other hand "providers/vendors" - an let's just consider the non-paid voluntary ones - are due to their lack of budget only able to primarily attend unconferences to present their work and exchange ideas and experiences. The "customers" are hindered to participate as their institutions will not cover their travel expenses and provide time-off (as reason one could hear "...missing 'citable' proceedings", "...no real ROI for our institute") and IMHO they might also not be willing to take it from their own pocket / holiday account as they still consider it as business activity for their work.
The Med-e-Tel Open Source village is in your words still a "small step for man" but one in the right direction. The Med-e-Tel organizers kindly provided space incl. poster boards that can be offered to FLOSS NPOs, community projects and developers at no cost in order to present their efforts to potential "customers". Thomas, Etienne and me will be at the village and voluntarily try our best to represent also projects that have not been able to send their own representatives due to the registration fees. The only thing NPO/community projects have to do is to send in a poster (if you want additional flyers, stickers, ...) about their project as described in the invitation for participation. So beside companies advertising their products in the central expo area, we hope that we can attract a lot of attention also to outstanding - even better ;-) - FLOSS projects and our common principles we share.
Best regards, Holger On 01/19/2013 01:39 AM, Eric Maeker wrote:
Dear Holger, Dear Debian Med members, Dear Med-e-Tel organizers, Thanks for this information. I would be very interested to participate in the Med-e-Tel. I think that FreeMedForms and FreeDiams are in a pre-1.0 release [1]. They are both reaching a strong stability and a good "first basic feature set". And as you know, they are both multi-lingual (which is rare for EMR). I'm planning the last 0.x release in few weeks. I hope to have enough time to include a "pregnancy checking" in the drug engine based on the tga data [3]. Unfortunately, registration fees and travel represent a heavy budget for a small non-profit organization. Some people of the FreeMedForms community have created a french non-profit association to support the suite [3]. But the fund raising is not yet started. I'm wondering if the organizers of Med-e-Tel could accept the principle of free-registration for representatives of non-profit, community driven, open source project? This kind of engagement can be a very strong message for open source providers. One kind of "giant leap for mankind" and not only "small steps for a man". Eric, freemedforms.com [1]: http://freemedforms.com [2]: http://www.tga.gov.au/ [3]: http://asso.freemedforms.com Le 18 janv. 2013 à 21:59, Holger Schmuhl a écrit :Dear packaging teams, developers and project communities, this years Med-e-Tel, International eHealth, Telemedicine and Health ICT Forum, comes again with a special feature dedicated to Open Source and Free Software in the domains of medical informatics and health care. Software projects, communities, NPOs and companies are invited to present their work within the “Open Source Village” that will be hosted right in the central expo area of the conference. If you are interested to present and/or participate, please take a look at the details: Open Source Village @ Med-e-Tel 2013 - Date: 10-12 April 2013 - Deadline for submissions: 22 February 2013 - Venue: LUXEXPO S.A., 10 circuit de la Foire Internationale, L-1347 Luxembourg - Details: http://www.medetel.lu/index.php?rub=educational_program&page=benefits_of_open_source_software_in_health_care_2013 - Contact: medetel-village@medfloss.org It is co-organized by ISfTeH Collaborative Care Team in Open Source Working Group, IMIA Open Source Working Group and EFMI LIFOSS Working Group. We are looking forward to your involvement! Best regards, Holger Schmuhl Vice-chair IMIA Open Source Working Group Coordinator Medfloss.org