[ale] Re: [ale-unemployed] Where we stand 2/8/02

[jeff hubbs]

>>The government is forcing the upgrade, I
>>think.  


It's not that the Gov't is forcing an upgrade but rather that the Gov't 
is mandating a certain behavior in software and the software vendor is 
tying an upgrade with a significant pricetag to the new behavior.  The 
vendor has basically painted its customers into a corner with a) the use 
of SCO and b) the fact that this new behavior must interoperate with 
their software.  Basically, they've erected a bidirectional barrier that 
makes it very difficult for doc shops who use this SW to break away from 
it and use something else that potentially is cheaper *and* satisfies 
the new mandate.  I say "bidirectional" because furthermore, people like 
us would very nearly have to start from scratch to create a replacement 
app.  Replacement apps that run on Wintel are readily available, I'm sure.

It might therefore be a lost cause to try to help these medical 
practices avoid these upgrade costs, for the real solution is to create 
a replacement app for networked Linux systems.  This is a noble goal, 
certainly, but if you ascribe to the postulate that says that it takes 
ten years to produce quality software almost no matter what it is or how 
many people work on it, you're fighting an uphill battle nevertheless. 
Sure, developing under Linux is schweet because the OS, the language 
support, the libs, etc. are at your fingertips, but that still doesn't 
change the fact that people still must code, test, code, test, code, 
test.  That would be true if this were done in COBOL on VMS, BASIC on 
TRS-80, or Brainfuck on PlayStation2.  No, for these guys, perhaps Linux 
can be used to ease pain and suffering in a support role as 
fax/file/print server, Perl-executing data munger, etc.

It might be reasonable to reverse-engineer the SCO app and access its 
data files directly from a Linux app that performed a convoluted 
transformation to achieve HIPAA interoperability.  That would be an act 
of augmentation and not of replacement and is therefore probably a lot 
more attainable.

- Jeff


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