Dear Collegues:

The Open Source Health Care Alliance (www.oshca.org) is organizing its
second annual meeting to take place on September 6 and 7 in London.  The
meeting is sponsored by the UK's NHS
(http://www.nhsia.nhs.uk/pages/open_source.htm).  I am organizing a session
on developing countries and would be very happy to hear from people
interested in participating.  Any other suggestions are also warmly
welcome.  Please, feel free to contact me with questions.

My personal objectives for the meeting include the following:

* introduce policy makers, innovators, and users to the benefits of the
open source approach in health care informatics

* welcome new members from developing countries in the community such that
the needs and visions of all parts of the world are represented in OSHCA

* foster better understanding for the needs of developing countries in the
existing community

* explore opportunities for collaboration on open source projects withing
the developing world and between developing and western world.

The following gives some brief background on the open source approach:

Open source is defined by software licenses that allow the free
modification and redistribution of source code.  Among the better known
open source software is the Linux operating system and the Apache web
server.  The probably most interesting potential that comes from this is
the possibility of informal collaboration of autonomous players, organized
in virtual communities, and in absence of legal and organizational
barriers.  For developing countries, it is also of interest that most cost
of open source products is related to local services much rather than
remote intellectual property rights.  Also, collaboration with western
players is possible without any harmful dependencies or control.  More
details about open source in general can be found at
www.opensource.org.  Some considerations of how it applies to health care
informatics can be found at www.sistema.it/LinuxAfrica2001/.

I am looking forward to your comments and suggestions.

kind regards

Bud P. Bruegger
/-----------------------------------------------------------------
| Bud P. Bruegger, Ph.D.
| Sistema (www.sistema.it)
| Via U. Bassi, 54
| 58100 Grosseto, Italy
| +39-0564-418667 (voice)
| +39-0564-426104 (fax)
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/-----------------------------------------------------------------
| Bud P. Bruegger, Ph.D.
| Sistema (www.sistema.it)
| Via U. Bassi, 54
| 58100 Grosseto, Italy
| +39-0564-418667 (voice)
| +39-0564-426104 (fax)
\-----------------------------------------------------------------