Hacker News Reader

Comment by nitrogen | Hacker News Reader

Constructive feedback: this sentence should really be worked into the first line of text: "It covers the functionality of Electronic Medical Record (EMR), Hospital Management, and Health Information System (HIS)."

As of now, one has to scroll/read for a bit before learning what the project actually does.

View on HN

It boggles my mind how often I visit company or application websites that make it difficult for me to find out what the thing is for and what it does.

It's a little disappointing, usually software that's part of the GNU project is really good about this. This website looks more "designed" rather than someone typing something up in vim (or Emacs) just to give people a landing page/description/links.

This website looks more "designed"

Not to mention the design has an uncomfortably political slant. Why is the front graphic a bunch of "take the power back" fists raised in the air? They seem to be saying, "don't use our software unless you identify as Revolucionario anticapitalista"

not too familiar with GNU?

I'm very familiar with GNU, which is why I expect a website that looks like this

https://gcc.gnu.org/

https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/bash.html

Reading in the other comments how the screenshots indicate this is a repackaging of "Tryton", a fork of OpenERP, it leads me to wonder if these people are just co-opting the GNU name to advance tired meatspace politics (ala libreboot).

Perhaps it is because GNU Health doesn't really take the power back. It appears to entrench doctors rather than empowering individuals, which seems to be the opposite of what GNU typically does.

Here is an actual take the power back health site aimed at individuals: http://miceats.blogspot.com/

I'm sorry but you are missing a huge part of what GNU is about. It is explicitly about "meatspace politics" and the philosophies of Richard Stallman. Explicitly you seem to be confusing "open source software" with "free software":

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.... https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.htm...

even more reading: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

I'm sorry but you are missing a huge part of what GNU is about.

No, I don't think I am. GNU supports building businesses on free software. That's why the GPL does not say "free for noncommercial use only" like many other licenses. It's meant to be sustainable.

Using iconography that says "businesses are bad, uprisings in the street are good" is counter to the GNU mission.

I suppose it is supposed to appeal to a different kind of person than one that would use Emacs.

Based on the Emacs site, that would be the kind of person who's interested in `'electric-quote-mode' for using curved quotes as you type.'

It's intentional. The more buzzwords and vague ideas you can flout, without committing to anything in particular, the wider the audience. Just like politics.

Except I'm busy and don't have time to decipher what you do, so I'll bounce and find someone that can clearly articulate their service and how it helps me.

It looks like that text has just been added to the page.

Yeah, it takes a bit of scrolling, kinda like the other EMR/HIS software that was on HN last week[1].

At the very least it isn't locked to CentOS 6.7 specifically, but GNU Health & Bahmni will likely never displace Epic or the other major players due to HIPPA & PCI/DSS compliance requirements, the latter of which causes most merchant processing platforms (like First Data) to outright reject any libre or shared source commerce system looking to integrate with them for payment processing.

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12905919

Reply on news.ycombinator.com