LinuxMedNews: Possible VistA Licensing Controversy?

[ Thanks to Saint for this link. ]

"Free and open source medical sofware advocates on the openhealth-list discussed a possible licensing difficulty between the VistA project and the recently announced Gnu Public Licensing (GPL'ing) of Sanchez Computer Associates GT.M database. The debate centers on the fact that VistA, a large collection of Veterans Administration medical software programs, is public domain. The source code for the programs are available by the Freedom of Information Act and has no license at all. However, VistA requires a database like GT.M to run."

"The question appears to come down to whether code obtainable under the Freedom of Information Act is already considered 'Free' by the GPL and/or if VistA is modified to run with a GPL'ed program whether it automatically becomes GPL'ed."

Complete Story

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