Fred Trotter writes: “For VA VistA we have a conundrum, the originator of the code, the US government, has left the code basically licenseless. I believe this means that the choice if preferred license should be up to the most substantial third-party developers. I believe that the most substantial way to make VistA better is to make contributions that make further development easier. MUMPS is a great language but it makes VA VistA inaccessible to most programmers. Given that I believe the most significant third-party contributions to VA VistA are (in no particular order):

• Medsheres OVID – because it lets you code for VistA in Java. (AGPL)
• EWD from M/Gateway – because if you already code in MUMPS you should still be able to write web interfaces. (AGPL)
• Astronaut VistA – because you want to be able to install… With all of the above devlopment environments, in seconds…. Not months… (AGPL)
• TMG-CPRS – because adding patients and correcting demographics should be easy. (GPL)
• OpenVistA CIS – because we want to be able to run VistA without Windows. (AGPL)
• Timsons Fileman – VistA Fileman is an important core VistA component that has had many improvements since George Timson left the VA. (GPL)”