Hi, we are a start-up and we’re looking to provide this software to clients
in a SaaS mode,
We are currently involved in re-designing the interface, majorly via CSS.
We are looking forward to contributing to the codebase as well.
I just want to clear up a few issues, regarding the licensing:
We are willing to forego the ONC-ATCB certification, Since we plan to
certify it separately in our country (India). Can we then re-brand the
software under the GNU License?
I read elsewhere that, with the Corporate Member Re-branding you have to
keep the exact same code without any modifications . This would mean that
our code changes are not valid/certifiable. Is that correct?
We would really hate to Fork/Branch Off from the OEMR codebase, But our
plans cannot accommodate using the unmodified version. Given our market
study.
OEMR is the organization that manages the ONC-ATCB certification, so if you want to rebrand and maintain the certification, then you should go through them (I am guessing the point is that they are responsible for your certification, so you can’t make unofficial codebases changes since this could break features required for certification; I could be wrong on the reason and will defer to OEMR and Tony).
Otherwise, as long as you follow the GPL license, you can do whatever you want with the OpenEMR software package. If you make any useful improvements, please contribute them back to the project. The advantages of contributing the code back to the OpenEMR project are many fold:
You improve the OpenEMR project
You avoid the pain/hassle of maintaining a diverging codebase (ie. if your code is in the official codebase, it will not get stepped on)
etc.
Looking very forward to seeing what you come up with on the css improvements. If you have code that you want reviewed for submission to the codebase, then use git/github, of which a tutorial can be found here: http://www.open-emr.org/wiki/index.php/Git_for_dummies