jcahn2 wrote on Wednesday, July 27, 2011:
Wow Sam! That is SWEEET!! Thanks for the “spit-shine”. Can’t wait to see what you do with the headline “OpenEMR Certified!” Do you have a large enough font? Jack
aethelwulffe wrote on Wednesday, July 27, 2011:
The time has come…for XOOPS to go to the archive in the sky.
I still have to admit that the xoops layout is MUCH more readable and clean looking. We are not going that route apparently though, so it’s time to get jiggy with it.
aethelwulffe wrote on Wednesday, July 27, 2011:
BTW…who is holding the openemr.org domain name, and how much ransom money are they looking for?
bradymiller wrote on Wednesday, July 27, 2011:
hi,
It’s looking nice, but have couple issues (now that it’s become the official OpenEMR page via linking):
1) Community did not agree (unless I missed something) to create another separate forum there. Please yank that thing or get the community to agree to it(or just let me know the community has already agreed to it).
2) The demo is pretty weak; (from experience, these things are destroyed frequently via passwords, acls, database mods) so rec. also having a plan in place to quickly fix broken demos or refresh demos. Should At least place a direct link on the demo page to the demo section in the wiki as a standby/backup(note the wiki demos are much more sophisticated and I would be happy to somehow pass on the demo farm from my home server to the official oemr site if anybody is willing to take it on). Also, to make the oemr demo more clear, suggest simply going to the demo description page (ie password) than having two links (one for the demo and one for the password).
3) Placing companies on the top right column really puts me off (and I’m pretty liberal in this regards, so I’m guessing many others will be uneasy with this). Instead, rec. placing the donation banner there and making a separate page for ads etc (or at least don’t let the add be at the top of the page).
4) Downloads link to: http://wiki.oemr.org/wiki/OpenEMR_Downloads (and not the download wiki section)
5) Don’t give the sourceforge download link (this will just confuse users)
-brady
sunsetsystems wrote on Wednesday, July 27, 2011:
Umm, yeah. Moving the forums is way premature, and adding one to oemr.org will create massive confusion. Please take it out for now.
And agree with Brady that the OpenEMR web site is not the place to advertise vendor services! That’s not how we do things here.
tsvas wrote on Wednesday, July 27, 2011:
I agree with Brady and and Rod. Please stop advertisements of vendor sites, and make it real OPEN EMR.
zhhealthcare wrote on Wednesday, July 27, 2011:
To establish our credentials and for the benefit of newbies, ZH Healthcare has been a substantial contributor to the OpenEMR code. Our contributions spans the entire breadth of OpenEMR, some of which are listed: Multiple billing facilities, Calendar modifications, Billing manager, New GUI, New payment system, CCR CCD, Encounter based documents upload, NationNotes, eRx, Messaging system, Off site patient portal and much more.
There are less than a handful of contributors who can match the above contributions: and even fewer who can say that they were not sponsored for their work. ZH Healthcare has not been sponsored by anyone (except in the case of NatioNotes, partially) and has not received a dime for these developments and contributions. These contributions work out to several thousand hours of coding: I invite you to do the math to arrive at the enormity of the contribution even with a low hourly rate of $30.
The oemr board has been struggling to raise money to do certifications and other expenses. In order to raise $500 for buying the new code document we had to jump through hoops. This plight, of an organization that has about 50,000 downloads a year. There are 1000s of users of OpenEMR out there who have refused to donate a cent to the organization, and yet preach the sanctimony of Open Source spirit.
Open source has to mean give and take, not just take. We cannot be leeching off of people like Brady or Dr. Bowen forever. Dr. Bowen has spent a fortune on getting the OpenEMR to the stage that it is today. Brady, I don’t know when he sleeps, if he sleeps at all. Where is the generosity of people when it is needed in cold hard currency?
I agree with Brady that the placement can be below the donate button, but I do have issues with no advertisers at all.
All major Open Source movements have had public private partnership. Please visit the opensource.com with particular interest in http://opensource.com/business/11/5/today-free-vs-paid-business-models-nicolas-pujol-and-toni-schneider-11am-et
We contributed code and time, we are contributing a portion of eRx fees to oemr, and furthermore we offered the Board to give ten percent of our revenues from the referrals from the oemr site. Oemr will have a consistent recurrent revenue stream as a result. I find it hard to believe that people have objection to such an arrangement. If so, why? How does this harm the project or its spirit in anyway?
Fundamentalist approach is destructive, whether they are from religious groups, environmental groups, or open source groups. We have to be pragmatic, we have to endure and survive.
ZH Healthcare’s vision for OpenEMR is to make it the best EMR product available, not just the best open source EMR. I am sure none of us have a differing view.
Shameem
sunsetsystems wrote on Wednesday, July 27, 2011:
Shameem, your efforts have been noticed by all and are greatly appreciated, and I fully expect they will be rewarded by a great deal of respect and business for ZH, as it has for Sunset Systems. However it’s important for the project’s credibility to not appear to be biased towards any particular vendor. That would certainly make me lose interest quickly.
That said, it appears the vendors behind OEMR.org and the related add-on for-pay services are determined to cash in, which is understandable. So this brings up once again my opinion that OEMR.org and “OpenEMR the open source project” should have their own separate identities. Let the OpenEMR home page be vendor-neutral, and OEMR.org’s web site be whatever its Board decides it should be. And of course each would freely link to the other.
Makes sense?
tsvas wrote on Wednesday, July 27, 2011:
Shameem, I am an end user. I started using OpenEMR in the assumption that it is a open source code. But, the way it looks like it is going more towards a commercial vendor.
My personal opinion:
1. Move OpenEMR back to original site, and use sourceforge for forums. If they forums are slow, sourceforge will fix it. They are hosting thousands of open source forums.
2. Vendors can be listed. But, put them in a separate page as before (something like credits/contacts etc). As we were doing before.
3. Create confidence to users that it is real open source code.
FYI - “newbie” will become “youngbie”, and “youngbie” will become “oldbie”.
Paying $30 to offshore programmer is funny. I have contact with huge number of offshore programmers who can do programming for $2/hr. Don’t take it negative. Intention of OpenEMR is donate free code, irrespective of man power cost, “religious groups, environmental groups, or open source groups”.
We greatly appreaiate your contribution. But, please keep openemr as open source code with no advertisements or ownership.
zhhealthcare wrote on Wednesday, July 27, 2011:
I guess my point is being missed, again. We can move the sites, split it, or take it to Timbuktu for all I care. My question is not answered by either of you: where do you generate the money to sustain the opensource and its progress? Where is the money to pay your “$2 offshore programmer” if you find one?(reserving comments on the original statement on the $2 programmer).
BTW I was not looking for kudos for our contributions. We did it willingly in the spirit of Open source. I listed it so that others understand the participants in this conversation in the right perspective.
Shameem
sunsetsystems wrote on Wednesday, July 27, 2011:
I think OEMR’org’s vision of soliciting donations, dues and grants for infrastructure improvements and other things that are difficult for a single user to sponsor is a fine model. That’s what we were talking about when I was in the discussions anyway. Don’t see how this requires a web site to promote vendors, and it seems to me that may also put the 501©3 status in very questionable territory.
In any case it sounds like you have some sort of arrangement with OEMR.org about advertising? Again, that kind of forces the separation issue.
tsvas wrote on Wednesday, July 27, 2011:
See http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate. Let us do a similar concept. Put a clearly visible message to donate. Let us see how the response will be.
Also put a note something like “Please donate at least $20 for your each download”.
bradymiller wrote on Wednesday, July 27, 2011:
Hi,
Until all the issues brought above are resolved, I suggest removing the link to the new Drupal page from the original oemr.org page and the from the wiki.
Issues to resolve:
1. Goals of page (improve OpenEMR accessibility vs. OEMR board showcase)
2. Advertisements
3. Forums
4. Link/tab/site organization
-brady
sunsetsystems wrote on Wednesday, July 27, 2011:
Brady, that makes sense to me.
bradymiller wrote on Thursday, July 28, 2011:
Hi,
Issues brought about by the proposed new home page:
1. Should goal be OpenEMR accessibility or a showcase for OEMR board.
My thoughts are that it would be nice to avoid needing to have a separate site for the OpenEMR project and the OEMR board. I think the way to possibly resolve this issue is to only place OpenEMR project stuff (links to wiki,demo,download,forum) along with a quick summary of the project on the home page with the goal of new users getting what they need without any confusion. Then could place a new tab on the top (to right of home) with a OEMR Board label (or something like that) for users that are interested. This should avoid needing to create two separate sites and avoid confusion by new users.
2. Should we allow advertisements. If so, then how.
My thoughts are that this is a slippery slope. Just think this through. In order to do this fairly, we need to be transparent about what it costs to get an advertisement slot. And guess what will then happen; All of sudden, the more parasitic type companies(I will not mention names) will pay and all of sudden have banners to their services on the top of the official OpenEMR project home page. (I also feel the need here to emphatically state that Z&H Healthcare is NOT in this parasitic category and they are a great group of OpenEMR developers whom have contributed lots of great code). If do go the advertisement route, then should consider making it clear (with a obvious Advertisement label above the ads).
3. Should it have a forum
For me this is obvious. No. There is still controversy on whether we even should get a new forum and we all agree that the drupal forum is not a solution. So, why would we even consider then using this as our forum. On that note, there should be no new login request on the site if no forum.
4. Is the site ready from a organization perspective
My opinion is no way(secondary to above issues which will confuse/put off potential new users). This can be fixed, though, with several hours of work in drupal and feedback from the community.
Just wanted to get the discussion going. Note the above is just my opinion and will leave the final solutions up to the community.
-brady
tsvas wrote on Thursday, July 28, 2011:
My opinion as a user:
1. User the original site http://www.oemr.org/ for OpenEMR landing page.
2. Link to sourceforge for forums. Sourceforge may have temporary issues, but it is the stable and well known site. First time I found OpenEMR from Sourceforge (of course many other open source code too).
3. Funding is a major constraint. In the Paypal banner, give some amount howmuch users can donate. Something like $20, $50, $100 etc. Also make an appeal to users to donate some amount before downloading.
4. Advertisements are always welcome. The way core code contributors think is - we contributed HUGE to OpenEMR, but where is my credit/profit/return? But, let everyone advertise only by payment. Advertisements on the right panel is good. I guess based on the OpenEMR volume, $3000/month is a reasonable price for 120x60 size banner.
5. Credits link. Provide a credits link so that non-profit contributors (ofcourse profit contributors too) will be recognized for their hard work.
tmccormi wrote on Thursday, July 28, 2011:
I generally agree with tsvas on this and have voted that way as a board member
1) www.oemr.org is the landing site for the OpenEMR project and has alway been. OEMR is the governance body and is represented as part of the community on that page as well as the general and specific information about the project via articles, FAQ and links to the wiki pages. There is no separating the two.
2) OEMR board voting to allow paid adversing and to explore other models of ad based revenue generation to meet the stated goals originally set out by OSMS. This is normal and good. We need to tweak the formats some more to make it clear what is paid advertising. Now that we have the donations button working we can enhance it to include onetime donation suggestions as well as subscription membership options.
3) Source forge links for the Developers forum are fine for now, until the contributers and community find a better solution. Not a big issue in my mind. It would be good to have a better place for non-developers to ask questions. SF is a hard jump for most non-computer geeks. I don;t have a good solution for that but I is likely phpBB accessible thru the website directly. We will have at least a board members forum on the site for discussions around board meetings and agenda, etc.
4) The site is live and will continue to be tweaked. The XOOPS site has been disabled now. No going back.
-Tony
sunsetsystems wrote on Thursday, July 28, 2011:
Tony, the administrators of the OpenEMR project on SF (Brady and I) do not agree with your point #1. OEMR.org’s self-proclamation of itself as the “governance body” does not make it so. Neither has it “always been” since OpenEMR has been around for many years and OEMR.org is new. You’re gonna have to fork the project if you want to go in that direction.
aethelwulffe wrote on Thursday, July 28, 2011:
I thought OEMR was a promotion body, not a governance body. OpenEMR is a communal effort, but still a programming project with poorer “results” than it should be capable of due to lack of funding, promotion, documentation, and no matter what my fellow geeks feel, community support for the AVERAGE end user. OEMR can fill that role, and had to become an entity to achieve that end. OpenEMR is not an entity, correct?. It is silly to compare the two things.
I feel that OEMR should do it’s thing to support the project in every way. It should, as it feels and is advised, take PROGRESSIVE steps to assist the project. This may involve “offering” facilities to the participants of the project. This should include a development forum that can be used as a documentation resource and a project organization tool that functions in a far better way than the sourceforge forum. Why? because some of us that are willing to do the deeds necessary feel that it really would help the community as a whole. Others, including many who have social standing among those here that are pivotal to the project may say “no–thank you, we are doing fine right here”. OK That may be true, and the others are wrong. It may be short-sighted and wrong, and kill the efforts of OEMR to assist. Either way, OEMR should make the effort, and the users decide if it is to work or not.
I have described a litany of reasons why a high-quality forum should be utilized, and how it won’t actually hurt those who
feel it is unnecessary. I won’t redress them again.
On Drupal:
I was informed that Drupal was the choice of Rod and or Brady or someone as the “way to go”. No, I don’t like it, and I don’t see why Drupal should be used when it looks like it does, but I played happy because I was sure this was a compromise that someone had a good reason for. Fine. Apparently someone does not want to set up a set of linked but not “technically” integrated bb3 forums for the site. Fine. No, the Drupal forums are not great, but the Advanced Forums are a bit better, and certainly is more useful than the sourceforge forums. Sourceforge is a great thing for developers to get a project up and going and share. It is NOT a good DISTRIBUTION point for non-dev projects. Nor is your typical wiki.
We need a front page with a format that lets folks feel like they are getting a stable, quality practice management system, not a “Build Your Own INcReDiBlE MASHEEN!” kit. This image is what OEMR has to project. You can’t do that without continuously updated and extensive documentation, clean support interface, and simple and bold downloads. You also cannot run a DIY Boatyard without letting in some quality contractors. That means that OEMR should not showcase potential help for the end user, but provide a separate contractor page extolling the relationship of the contractors who have DONATED in some way to the project itself, or to OEMR.org.