[med-svn] r5559 - trunk/community/papers/11_med-floss_luxemburg

[Steffen Möller]

Author: moeller
Date: 2010-12-09 13:53:15 +0000 (Thu, 09 Dec 2010)
New Revision: 5559

Modified:
   trunk/community/papers/11_med-floss_luxemburg/paper-text.tex
Log:
More work on the motivation section.


Modified: trunk/community/papers/11_med-floss_luxemburg/paper-text.tex
===================================================================
--- trunk/community/papers/11_med-floss_luxemburg/paper-text.tex	2010-12-09 13:23:31 UTC (rev 5558)
+++ trunk/community/papers/11_med-floss_luxemburg/paper-text.tex	2010-12-09 13:53:15 UTC (rev 5559)
@@ -35,25 +35,43 @@
 
 \subsection{Motivation and purpose of \DebianMed}
 
-The advent of \DebianMed is characterised by the rise of several new
-Free Software projects that were useful for certain tasks in medical
-care.  Several of these projects -- even if promising in the
-beginning -- do not exist any more because they did not
-obeyed the principle of Free Software: care for a solid user base
-and recruit qualified developers from it.  This task is one of the
-hardest in the field of health care: there is a much smaller number of
-users for such specific software compared to a web browser or an
-office suite.
+The advent of \DebianMed was stimulated by the rise of several new
+Free Software projects that were found useful in addressing a series
+of diverse tasks in medical care.
+Several of these projects -- albeit initially appearing most promising \marginpar{which?}
+-- are now dormant. Those failed to follow two basic principles of Free Software: care for a solid user base
+and recruit qualified developers from it.  This becomes increasingly difficult with 
+the degree of specialisation of the software and a field of application that has its
+focus on something else, i.e. the human, than the exchange of information. 
 
-Obtaining reliable information about all these projects is a big problem
-Some enthusiastic users tried to assemble lists
-of these projects and published these on the web.  While those lists
-are an interesting start they are ultimately not really helpful for
-users: Users just need readily usable programs without having to make efforts to obtain
-and install software.  The idea of \DebianMed was to provide
-not only a list but exactly what users need.
+%a field of aptask is one of the
+%hardest in the field of health care: there is a much smaller number of
+%users for such specific software compared to a web browser or an
+%office suite.
 
+With a smaller number of potential contributors, one needs to help
+the community as much as possible to develop itself and to develop
+the contacts to their users. Debian as a Linux distribution already
+supports the distribution of the software, rendering it instantly
+available. It further reduces the packaging work by allowing to
+depend on other packages. \DebianMed complements this with a platform
+for the communication between all involved parties.
 
+%Obtaining reliable information about all these projects is a big problem
+%Some enthusiastic users tried to assemble lists
+%of these projects and published these on the web.  While those lists
+%are an interesting start they are ultimately not really helpful for
+%users: Users just need readily usable programs without having to make efforts to obtain
+%and install software.  The idea of \DebianMed was to provide
+%not only a list but exactly what users need.
+
+Web search engines pick up the software tools and their descriptions
+on the Debian Med task pages. Beyond mere lists or announcement
+sites, e.g. Freshmeat.net, with Debian the user can almost instantly
+start evaluating the software on the local computer.
+
+
+
 \subsection{Status of Free Software in health care}
 
 Common programs like a web server, or a mail user agent are installed