I found this article
to be an interesting read. It is an article at Informatics Review. Linda Wedemeyer,
MD asked the following question to an AMIA email group and digested the answers:
“I am a practicing ophthalmologist in Los Angeles, and a medical informatics
student at UC Davis. I have followed the conversations about open source software
with interest. Recently I have been reviewing the literature on the topic. One
thing is not clear to me. I see lots of software available, but IS ANYBODY ACTUALLY
DOING THIS? I can see that there are bits and pieces being used here and there.
Has anybody set up a whole health care institution using open source software,
and if so, is it working in real life? How does the quality/cost compare IN REAL
LIFE to commercial software? Does hiring commercial groups to support the products,
if you don’t have the staffing in house, actually work? Editor’s Note: Excellent post Steven. We originally reported on this event here. See my comments below for some background on it.

K. Bhaskar writes: ‘GT.M V4.3-001A has been released. This release adds significant new functionality in the areas of Job Interrupt, alternation in pattern matching, performance enhancements in the area of M locks, and additional database tuning parameters.’ For those of you just tuning in, this is an open source Mumps compiler which is making the Veterans Administration VistA software available to civilian types. The full text of the message follows.

GT.M V4.3-001A has been released. This release adds significant new functionality in the areas of Job Interrupt, alternation in pattern matching, performance enhancements in the area of M locks, and additional database tuning parameters.

Since GT.M’s security model is to use, and not bypass or subsume, the
security of the underlying operating system, the new Job Interrupt
capability respects OS security (i.e., in order to signal a GT.M
process, the sender must have permission from the OS to send the
signal). The default behavior of GT.M Job Interrupt provides a “job
examine” functionality, but the underlying mechanism is a more general
mechanism that enables an M process to receive and handle an
asynchronous signal.

Alternation in pattern matching is required to run the VistA
application. So, if you have been using the V4.3-FT06 version, please
switch to V4.3-001A.

Executables are available at Source Forge
(http://sourceforge.net/projects/sanchez-gtm). Source code will follow
shortly. Technical bulletins for the release notes as well as for Job
Interrupt and the new functionality for mupip set journal are also
available, in the Docs section.

Please download and use the new version, and give feedback in the
Forums and ask for Support in the Support area at Source Forge. Thank
you for your continued interest in GT.M.

Regards

— Bhaskar

P.S. If you have a GT.M license (evaluation or regular) for a platform
other than x86 GNU/Linux, and you need the current password for the
GT.M FTP site, please contact GT.M support.