[Asterisk-Users] Re: Advice on OS Choice

[Peter Svensson]

On Sat, 16 Oct 2004, Kevin Walsh wrote:

> > I'm talking about a manufacturer who sells medical monitoring equipment to
> > a major hospital campus.  The campus WILL and DOES have its own
> > electronics shop, with technicians who know the business end of a
> > soldering iron, and frequently people who are damn sharp with computers
> > as well, because they are almost always burdened with the complexities of
> > fixing and maintaining a weird custom mishmash of equipment and networks
> > required by their employer. 
> >
> You really are tying yourself into knots here.  If the hospital trusts
> its staff to mess about inside their expensive and critical medical
> equipment with a soldering iron, then the technical staff will hopefully
> have been provided with detailed schematics and training, and will
> hopefully have some idea of what they think they're doing.

Actually, some pieces of equipment that are really *really* life critical
such as shaped radiation sources for the treatment of tumors are often
maintained by the staff of the hospital. After the initial installation
service is performed by the staff. That is why the machines come with huge
sets of documentation, hardare, software and so on. It is not open source,
but the customer do have full access.

Peter