dhis2-users team mailing list archive

[Bob Jolliffe <bobjolliffe@xxxxxxxxx>]

Yes Saptarshi I think you are right this does really touch on much bigger
issues.  And as Johan points out the comparison in the blog post is mostly
a straw man argument.

One could quite easily set up a free (as in beer) hosting service for
dhis2, with a model of providing "extras" at a cost.  In fact from a
business perspective its maybe not such a bad idea.  I'm sure we'll see
someone doing that soon.

There are quite a few differences between the magpi cases and typical dhis2
deployments.  In almost all cases (I think the Kenya MOH polio program is
the exception) they refer to the system owners as international development
agencies, whereas in most of our historical cases the system owners are
public ministries of health.  And there are qualitative and substantive
differences between the custodianship requirements of handling data on
behalf of your citizens and handling data for clients in a private
relationship.

Free as in twitter, facebook and gmail represents a deliberately dumbed
down, naive, dangerous and frankly foolish understanding of freedom and
data sovereignty.

Regarding what we have on our website (which suddenly starts to look very
beautiful by the way), I think it is true that we have emphasised
incorrectly.  The provided quote "DHIS 2 is open source software released
under the BSD license and *can be used at no cost*."  is a case in point.
 Not sure why we have avoided the terminology of free software in favour of
"open source" with an additional emphasis on no cost.  A more accurate
rephrasing would simply say "DHIS2 is free software/open source software
released under the BSD license.  When you download the software you are *
free* (my emphasis) to set it up on your servers or even on somebody else's
servers.  There are short and long term costs associated with the
implementation, deployment and maintenance of a national health management
information system.  The DHIS2 software licence gives you the freedom to
choose how best to balance these."

Bob



On 31 May 2013 04:03, Saptarshi Purkayastha <sunbiz@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> This might be pointing to a larger debate I feel:
>
> About Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)  Vs Software deployment. Enough has
> been said by Salesforce on pricing benefits, and is a similar argument by
> Google docs against Microsoft Office. That DHIS2 is not available as SaaS
> could be critiqued by some, but freedom is one obvious argument against
> SaaS.
> Richard Stallman, in my opinion correctly pointed out that freedom is
> compromised through such SaaS -
> http://bostonreview.net/BR35.2/stallman.php
>
> We should do a TCO exercise, since we are the largest implementers of
> DHIS2. But anyone who wants to start a SaaS with DHIS2, should be the
> people really doing it. That would be good exercise to determine per-user
> cost of providing such a service.
>
> PS: I think this is useful to discuss on the users list, hence sending
> there...
>
> ---
> Regards,
> Saptarshi PURKAYASTHA
>
> My Tech Blog:  http://sunnytalkstech.blogspot.com
> You Live by CHOICE, Not by CHANCE
>
>
> On 31 May 2013 10:39, Johan Sæbø <johansa@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> Interesting, and we should work on the wording on our website.
>>
>> However, I read his point as nothing is really free, except magpi. In his
>> comparison with DHIS2 though, he's comparing apples and oranges. He also
>> fails to mention that you have to pay per reported form, and for extra
>> functionality. Not that he doesn't have a point about DHIS2, but he's
>> comparison is quite unfair.
>>
>> https://datadyne.zendesk.com/**entries/21093588-Cost-of-**
>> Magpi-formerly-EpiSurveyor-<https://datadyne.zendesk.com/entries/21093588-Cost-of-Magpi-formerly-EpiSurveyor->
>>
>> Johan
>>
>>
>> On 31.05.2013 09:54, Ola Hodne Titlestad wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> Here is an interesting blog post on the cost of DHIS 2, and Free and
>>> Open Source Software in general:
>>>
>>> http://www.datadyne.org/2013/**05/global-dev-where-free-**
>>> means-expensive/<http://www.datadyne.org/2013/05/global-dev-where-free-means-expensive/>
>>>
>>> Not sure where he got the idea that a national, or any, HIS
>>> implementation can be free from, but I guess he has a point that it is
>>> important to be clear on what part is free.
>>> We can definitely be better at providing guidance on the
>>> implementation costing, although I don't think we have been trying to
>>> hide the fact that training thousands of users can be expensive.
>>>
>>> The freedom aspect of free software is of course not mentioned in his
>>> blog at all....
>>>
>>> Ola
>>> ------
>>>
>>> ------------------------------**----
>>> Ola Hodne Titlestad (Mr)
>>> HISP
>>> Department of Informatics
>>> University of Oslo
>>>
>>> Mobile: +47 48069736
>>> Home address: Eftasåsen 68, 0687 Oslo, Norway. Googlemaps link
>>>
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>>
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