[Asterisk-Users] Re: Advice on OS Choice

[Joe Greco]

> Joe Greco [jgreco at ns.sol.net] wrote:
> > > Your scenario can be played out any number of ways, with or without
> > > source. You routinely send your life critical hardware down to Bob and
> > > Doug's repair shop?  You have bigger issues in place.
> > >
> > What are we talking about "Bob and Doug's repair shop" for?
> >
> > 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.

You've just tied yourself into a knot.  The point is that the GPL would
force disclosure of "detailed schematics" for something where none would
have been provided otherwise, effectively preventing people from even
contemplating putzing with it.  You've finally discovered the reason why
source shouldn't be distributed.  Enlightenment.

> There's probably more of a risk of these people messing up the hardware
> than of them finding the time to port GNU/Linux onto a kidney dialysis
> machine, or modifying a heart monitor to double-up as an Asterisk server.

That's kind of like saying "you're more likely to try to putz with your
computer's motherboard than you are to try to make some changes to the
Asterisk software".  It's simply not true.  How many times this year have
you taken a soldering iron to your motherboard?  Now think really hard:
how many times this year have you changed the configuration on your
computer, either adding software, changing code, etc.?

> If some Muppet thinks it'd be cool to insert a patient into a CT scanner
> that's been modified to run Tux Racer, then the blame for any negative
> results will have to lie squarely with the hospital and/or the
> individuals concerned.  

You would think and hope.  The US legal system doesn't necessarily work
that way.

> Surely the hospital would be required to get
> all hardware or software modifications thoroughly tested and officially
> certified before handing the equipment over to Dr. Mengele for human
> trials anyway.

The hospital isn't in a position to get such changes validated.  There's 
an excruciatingly long process the manufacturer has to go through with
the FDA.  That doesn't mean that it's not tempting for someone to think
"boy, that's a UNIX platform, bet I could run $APP on it, or change
$WHATEVER".

> Distributing the source would allow peer review;  The hospital staff,
> and other interested parties, could point out potential bugs, suggest
> possible enhancements and even provide patches for consideration that
> could turn out to be of benefit to healthcare in the future.

Uh huh.  Well, nice in theory, but not going to happen.  There's no reason
to put the code under GPL, distribute it, and give HP access to technology
several years more advanced than what they had.  That just doesn't happen
in the commercial world.  Nobody's stupid enough to spend many man-years
of development work and then *give* it to a competitor.  You might well be
out of business a few years later, having saved your competitor a ton of
money on development, allowing them to sell a similar product for 25% less.

Oops.

> You obviously have other reasons why you think that free and open source
> software is such a bad idea, and are frantically trying to "think" up
> reasons to support your cause.  It's not working.

No.  I, however, understand that closed source software has its place, and
that open source software also has its place.  My *point* is that frequently
places developing closed source software can leverage off of BSD licensed
software.  It does not harm those projects, and frequently betters them as
there can be some major changes submitted back (Apple being another example,
and very visibly at that).  The GPL does not allow this sort of synergy,
and as a result, damages both the GPL'd project and the otherwise would-be
contributor.  If you cannot refute this point, then you're just making a
lot of noise.

> Please purchase a clue before attempting to post a reply to this article.

Please go work as a software author in a variety of fields for a few decades
before you bother to reply.  We'll see you in 2024.  You have a real GPL-
induced clue deficit, and this is getting quite old.

... JG
-- 
Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net
"We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I
won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN)
With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.