“The cash-strapped NHS [National Health Service] would benefit
from adopting open source software such as Linux, according to
health service experts.”
“It is claimed that using open source software would reduce the
cost of implementing technology within the health service and make
systems more future-proof and adaptable.”
“An editorial in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) entitled
Medical software’s free future, published last week, says that the
cost of commercial software is putting an increasing burden on
resources with the health service and suggests that open source
solutions could be just the tonic the NHS needs.”
“‘Free software concepts make particular sense in medicine,’
says Dr Douglas Carnall, associate editor of the Journal. ‘Once a
customer is ‘locked into’ proprietary software, its makers can
demand premium prices, safe in the knowledge that the client would
find it even more expensive to change. Much better instead to
invest time on a system licensed under the General Public Licence
that will always be free,’ he says.”