Much has been said about open source and there are better sites that give more information (www.fsf.org, www.opensource.org). But let me write about free and/or open source software (FOSS) for health.
I am biased towards enforcing FOSS fundamentals for health applications especially those which are mission-critical. The reason is that a full audit of the software should be possible *before* the application is used in a production environment and especially when a mishap occurs causing injury.
Our experience at NThC reveals that there is a need for an auditing system for software to be applied in clinical environments. Tests should be created to guide developers, and a monitoring system to document application performance should be made available to the regulators.
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