/[debian-med]/trunk/community/papers/11_med-floss_luxemburg/paper-text.tex

Diff of /trunk/community/papers/11_med-floss_luxemburg/paper-text.tex

Parent Directory | Revision Log | View Patch Patch

-revision 5594 by tille,
Fri Dec 10 12:34:43 2010 UTC
+revision 5595 by naoliv,
Fri Dec 10 13:36:32 2010 UTC
 Line 5
    free medical software into the focus of users. Those may be IT
    service providers for smaller clinics, the doctors themselves,
    researchers in pre-clinical environments or just skilled enthusiasts
-   with an ambition to apply their talents the biomedical domain.  At
+   with an ambition to apply their talents to the biomedical domain.  At
    that time, the communities in computational biology, medical imaging
    and medical informatics already had a number of high-quality Free
    Software solutions. Debian as a Linux distribution provided a solid
 Line 32
    different domains of applications.  Today, Blend task pages complement
    canonical Debian package listings with additional information
    (e.g. scientific references) and also cover software products
-   which are relevant for a given domain, but not yet integrated into
+   that are relevant for a given domain, but not yet integrated into
    Debian.  A growing community with continuously improving maintenance
-   procedures ease direct contributions to Debian, thus preventing unnecessary
+   procedures eases direct contributions to Debian, thus preventing unnecessary
    fractioning of the open-source community, and allow for supporting customised
    versions of Debian, such as \DebianMed, within the Debian ecosystem.
    % the others are inactive enough to not mention them here
 Line 71 
 increasing specialisation of software.
  With a smaller number of potential contributors, one needs to help
  the community as much as possible to develop itself and to develop
  a tight relationship with its users. Debian as a Linux distribution already
- help distributing software in a readily usable form. Moreover, modularisation aspects of Debian packaging do not only reduce the complexity of packaging individual software, by allowing to
+ helps distributing software in a readily usable form. Moreover, modularisation aspects of Debian packaging do not only reduce the complexity of packaging individual software: by allowing to
  depend on other packages, it also eases maintenance of the
- complete system. For example, due to modularisation updates and fixes in core libraries, most
+ complete system. For example, due to modularisation, updates and fixes in core libraries
- of the time, make end-user software upgrades unnecessary. Performing binary builds
+ make end-user software upgrades unnecessary most of the time. Performing binary builds
  for more supported hardware platforms than any other operating system and extensive quality
  assurance guarantee robust performance of deployed Debian systems.
  \DebianMed complements the Debian infrastructure with a communication platform
 Line 118 
 programmers that tackle unresolved probl
  software they are using.
  This type of user is extremely valuable to a project, because they can
  implement and contribute any modification they need by themselves without having to rely
- on a projects manpower.
+ on a project's manpower.
  %For the
  %larger challenges there may be many different driving forces coming
  %together. \marginpar{explain?}
 Line 135 
 Software solutions.
  There are many ties between adjacent fields of science and also software
  developers and users outside of biological research benefit from \DebianMed's
- and similar efforts. Mutual interest in neuroimaging software led the
+ and similar efforts. Mutual interest in neuroimaging software led to the
- NeuroDebian project \cite{neurodebian} join forces with \DebianMed to improve
+ NeuroDebian project \cite{neurodebian} joining forces with \DebianMed to improve
  the coverage of medical imaging software in Debian.  Even if some important
  packages like the Bio Image Suite \cite{bioimagesuite:2008} are not yet
  packaged for Debian, there is already an extensive coverage of viewers, data
 Line 161 
 drugs database (FDA, CA, FR, ZA) as a st
  connection with other medical health record applications (like for
  instance GNUmed).
- An even larger task, managing a hospital is also tackled by several
+ The even larger task of managing a hospital is also tackled by several
- projects and the most famous is OpenVista\cite{openvista:2008}. As an
+ projects, of which the most famous is OpenVista\cite{openvista:2008}. As an
  enterprise grade health care information system it is rather
  complex and needs a dedicated maintenance team beyond \DebianMed,
  with a strong technical background and familiarity with the peculiarities of
 Line 172 
 packaging.  This has started in August 2
  we will see OpenVista in Debian at some point in the future.
  Another application for hospital management is
- OpenMRS\cite{openmrs:2010} which is in preparation of being included
+ OpenMRS\cite{openmrs:2010}, which is in preparation of being included
  into Debian and chances are good that this will be finished in the
  beginning of 2011.
- \section{Principles of Free Software Distribution}
+ \section{Principles of Free Software distribution}
  % To me this section is more a description of core properties of Debian than
  % about principles of Free software distribution. If my impression is wrong
  % then many other distributions should be mentioned here as well.
 Line 196 
 offer Debian packages.
  %A local administrator
  %has to decide, if this public source may be trusted.
- To make free Software development work, it requires a critical mass of
+ To make Free Software development work, it requires a critical mass of
  supporters. Development without feedback prior to the submission of
  the final product is disadvantageous.  The development of programs is
- not the main concern of a regular Linux Distribution.  However, with
+ not the main concern of a regular Linux distribution.  However, with
  the focus on Free Software and smooth local compilation, Debian
  considerably eases the contribution of comments and concise feedback
  of the technically skilled early adopters. Debian helps to bring
 Line 220 
 Policy and the Debian Free Software Guid
  Free or not free: Debian has a collection of criteria, referred
  to as the
  \printurl{www.debian.org/social_contract\#guidelines}{Debian
-   Free Software Guidelines (DFSG)}, that allow to free and open-source
+   Free Software Guidelines (DFSG)}, that allow to distinguish free and open source
  software from other categories of software.
  The most notable of these rules is that a software license must permit
  modifications and that those modifications are allowed to be redistributed,
  while granting the recipient the same rights. Moreover, there
  shall be no restrictions imposed on the recipients to whom those rights
  are granted regarding the work that is exerted with that software.
- For example, Debian does not consider software as \textit{free} that comes as
+ For example, Debian does not consider software as \textit{free}, if it only comes as
  \textit{free for academia}. Such software cannot become part of the Debian
  system, but may only by offered in supplemental repositories.
  Another important rule is that any granted permission must not be specific to
- Debian, but shall be universally applicable to anyone, \emph{i.e.} another software
+ Debian, but shall be universally applicable to anyone, such as other software
- vendor or an individual users. This requirement is another indication for an
+ vendors or individual users. This requirement is another indication of an
- intrinsic impetus to help Free software at large.
+ intrinsic impetus to help Free Software at large.
  %The Debian Policy describes the structure and contents of the Debian
  %archive and several design issues of the operating system, as well as
 Line 268 
 availability of software that contribute
  and beyond.
  This {\em do-ocracy} principle enables individuals or small groups to
- actively influence the support of certain work fields.
+ actively influence the support of certain fields of work.
  Here, community-driven Linux distributions have an edge over
  commercial Linux distributions. The number of users that may use
- a package, \emph{i.e.} that pay back for an initial packaging effort,
+ a package, \emph{i.e.} that ``pay back'' for an initial packaging effort,
- is not the decisive factor in favor or against the maintenance of a
+ is not the decisive factor in favor of or against the maintenance of a
  package. One only needs a sufficiently large community of active
  package maintainers to have confidence that the current
  infrastructure will be maintained, that new packages will
- be brought into the distribution and that one will possibly be
+ be brought into the distribution, and that one will possibly be
  allowed to improve current workflows with personal contributions.
  \DebianMed is actively benefiting from this aspect and is supporting a
- lot of applications which are very specific to medical care and are
+ lot of applications that are very specific to medical care and are
  not integrated in any other large distribution.
  The advantage of plugging Free Medical Software directly into a large
 Line 299 
 upstream developer, usually per email,
  %Earlier than this effort was
  the \printurl{www.debian.org/Bugs}{Debian Bug Tracking System} (BTS) offers
  an additional channel for tracking software defects efficiently. The
- maintainer of a software can investigate whether a particular report is actually
+ maintainer of a piece of software can investigate whether a particular report is actually
  valid before upstream developers need to deal with it. Moreover, in many cases
  the Debian maintainer can suggest or even implement fixes, that are then sent
  to upstream alongside the bug report, if the problem is not Debian-specific.
 Line 310 
 In the case of Free Medical Software the
  do not feature a bug tracking system.  Thus the inclusion of such
  software into Debian adds extra value to the respective projects, because users can
  report issues via the Debian BTS and the maintainer of a package
- work as a proxy to the software authors.  For a user this has
+ works as a proxy to the software authors.  For a user this has
  the benefit of a consistent bug reporting interface and software
  authors might get extra technical information provided by the Debian
  maintainer who generally has decent technical knowledge.
 Line 357 
 platforms are available online for every
  \subsection{Selection of packages}
- Debian contains more than 20000 binary packages, and this number is
+ Debian contains more than 20,000 binary packages, and this number is
  constantly increasing.  There is no single user who needs all these
  packages.
  % duplication
  %The typical user is interested in a subset of these
- packages.
+ %packages.
  To specify packages of one's particular interest, several
  options are provided by Debian:
  \begin{description*}
  \item[tasksel] Provision of a reasonable software selection for rather general
    tasks that can be accomplished using a set of packages installed on
-Line 397 
 options are provided by Debian:
+Line 398 
 options are provided by Debian:
  \end{description*}
  In addition to its 13 officially supported architectures, there are
- ports to even more hardware architectures and operating systems kernels.
+ ports to even more hardware architectures and operating system kernels.
  Moreover, Debian package management and distribution infrastructure
  has been adopted to other operating systems lacking a built-in equivalent,
  \emph{i.e.} Fink on Mac OS X
-Line 412 
 There are general distributions, which d
+Line 413 
 There are general distributions, which d
  user group and try to provide a universal coverage,
  and there are several specialised distributions targeting specific groups of users.
- {\itshape Distributors\/} are those companies that are building these
+ {\itshape Distributors\/} are those companies or organisations that are building these
  collections of software.  Since the software provided by GNU/Linux distributions
  is Free, the user purchasing a copy of the distribution pays for the
  service that the distributor is providing.  These services might be:
-Line 448 
 a product with the following features:
+Line 449 
 a product with the following features:
    \item attractive web appearance
  \end{itemize*}
- Due to the complexity of the task these projects had to make compromises
+ Due to the complexity of the task, these projects had to make compromises
- regarding the quality of their products and where frequently being
+ regarding the quality of their products and were frequently being
  \begin{itemize*}
    \item sloppy about policy of the underlying Debian system
    \item sloppy about the licenses of the included programs
-Line 468 
 forums, IRC, etc.
+Line 469 
 forums, IRC, etc.
  It turned out that this approach is not sustainable for the distribution of
  Free Medical Software.
  Some of these distributions issued only a single
- release, others remained longer but were constantly loosing
+ release, others remained longer but were constantly losing
- manpower.  Furthermore, no security updates were made available and the
+ manpower.  Furthermore, no security updates were made available, and the
- distribution of general software tools stagnated at the point when
+ distribution of general software tools stagnated at the moment at which
  the original fork from Debian, Knoppix or other distribution happened.
  Especially the latter aspect made such an approach to distribute software
  unacceptable for sensible medical data.
- To prevent these problems \DebianMed took a different approach.  The initial team was
+ To prevent these problems, \DebianMed took a different approach.  The initial team was
- also quite small, but has grown in the eight years of existence to more
+ also quite small, but has grown in the eight years of its existence to more
  than 20 active maintainers.  The primary idea is to maintain medical
  applications {\em inside} Debian.  This automatically solves all
- drawbacks of the separate distributions mentioned above: There are
+ drawbacks of the separate distributions mentioned above: security
- security updates provided without any specific effort of the Debian
+ updates are provided without any specific effort of the Debian
  Med team.  There is a huge and reliable infrastructure with a bug
  tracking system, several FTP servers all over the world, autobuilders
  and an QA team running intense tests regarding software quality (see
  above).
- Similar effort as \DebianMed exists in Fedora as
+ An effort similar to \DebianMed exists in Fedora as
  \printurl{http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/SIGs/FedoraMedical}{FedoraMedical
    SIG (Special Interest Group)} and in openSUSE as
  \printurl{http://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Medical}{openSUSE Medical}.
- Both projects share the same idea to put medical applications inside a
+ Both projects share the same idea of putting medical applications inside a
  larger distribution instead of trying to do the work of the
  distributor themselves.  The
- difference to \DebianMed (besides of the different distribution) is
+ difference with \DebianMed (besides of being different distributions) is
  that both teams are much smaller and thus the number of packaged
  applications is in both cases less than 5\% of the applications
  available for Debian.  Moreover Debian does not distinguish between
-Line 509 
 underlying operating system (you can eas
+Line 510 
 underlying operating system (you can eas
  kernel with Debian 6.0) but rather the fact that the same strategy to
  support a specific field as in \DebianMed was followed:  Use a large
  and technically well supported system and put the specific software
- for special use cases {\em into} this instead of deriving the whole
+ for special use cases {\em into} this system instead of deriving a
- system.
+ whole {\em new} system from the existing one.
  \subsection{Comparison with \DebianMed}
-Line 520 
 system.
+Line 521 
 system.
  Looking at all efforts mentioned above (except Fedora
  Medical and openSUSE Medical) it becomes evident that they are all
  limited to biological software.  Previously it was stated that one
- strong column of \DebianMed is this specific field and it is for a
+ strong column of \DebianMed is this specific field. This is the case for a specific
  reason: The amount of free biological software is large and most of
  these projects are relatively easy to turn into packages -- therefore the
- amount of work per package is much smaller compared to for instance
+ amount of work per package is much smaller compared to, for instance,
  medical record applications with preparation of databases, dedicated
  user management.
  There is one major difference between the projects mentioned above
  and \DebianMed: While the biological part is really interesting for
- medical care \DebianMed tries to cover all other fields of medical
+ medical care, \DebianMed tries to cover all other fields of medical
- care as well.  This goal is not yet reached but continuous work is
+ care as well.  This goal is not yet reached but work in this direction
- done into this direction and some important steps are done.
+ is continuously performed and some important steps are done.
  \subsubsection{Debian Pure Blend}
  An even more important difference than the more general approach
- compared to the other repositories is the fact that \DebianMed is not
+ compared to the other repositories, is the fact that \DebianMed is not
  only about just packaging software.  The \DebianMed project is one of
  the earliest so called {\em Debian Pure Blends} and aims to do
  more for the comfort of their users than adding binary packages to the
  Debian package pool.  The main goal is to turn Debian into the
  distribution of choice for people working in the field of medicine and
  to make Debian an operating system that is particularly well suited for
- the requirements for medical practice and research. The goal of
+ the requirements of medical practice and research. The goal of
- \DebianMed is a complete system for all tasks in medical care which is
+ \DebianMed is a complete system for all tasks in medical care that is
- build completely on free software.
+ built completely on Free Software.
  \subsubsection{Flexibility in supporting small user groups}
  On the organisational side the project tries to attract people working
  in the field of Free Software in medicine to share the effort of
- building a common platform which reduces the amount of work for
+ building a common platform that reduces the amount of work for
  developers and users.  Sharing the effort in publishing free medical
  software to a large user base is a main advantage of \DebianMed.
  The strength of Debian is the huge number of developers (more than
-) all over the world working in different fields.  Some of them
+,000) all over the world working in different fields.  Some of them
  are working in the field of biology or medicine and thus have a
  natural interest in developing a rock solid system they can rely on
  for their own work (not only commercial interest to sell service per
-Line 575 
 somebody who just does the work is calle
+Line 576 
 somebody who just does the work is calle
  just means the doer decides what gets done.
  That is the reason why Debian is often the platform of choice for
- researcher in the field of computational biology: Some biologists are Debian
+ researchers in the field of computational biology: Some biologists are Debian
  maintainers and so they added support for biological packages. The
- more the Debian user in the field of biology report back about
+ more the Debian users in the field of biology report back about
- problems or wishes the more Debian maintainers are able to enhance
+ problems or wishes, the more Debian maintainers are able to enhance
- their system for their own and their users benefit.
+ their system for their own and their users' benefit.
  \subsubsection{Metapackages}
  Debian offers tens of thousands of software, data and documentation packages. It is considered
  helpful for the users (who might not have the right to install
- packages himself) to specify all biomedical software with
+ packages themselves) to specify all biomedical software with a
  single instruction given to the local shell or to the local system
  administrator.
  \DebianMed contains a set of metapackages that
- declare dependencies on other Debian package to thus prepare
+ declare dependencies on other Debian packages that can be used to prepare
  the system for solving particular tasks.  The user
- then needs to seek only for metapackages starting with prefix \package{med-}
+ only needs to search for metapackages starting with prefix \package{med-},
- to install just few of them to fulfill his software selection requirements.
+ and install just few of them to fulfill his or her software selection requirements.
  The package management system then will take care about
  the installation of all packages that are in the list of dependencies
  of these metapackages -- so the user can be sure that all packages he
- might need for the job will be installed on his system.  Once any of
+ or she might need for the job will be installed on his or her system.  If at least one of
- the metapackages is installed, a special user menu will be created to
+ the metapackages is installed, a special user menu is created to
  enhance usability for the user working in the field of medicine.
  Currently, \DebianMed applications are provided in certain
-Line 607 
 hospital information systems, medical im
+Line 608 
 hospital information systems, medical im
  molecular biology and medical genetics and others.
  %% This sounds somewhat redundant to me - SM
- Each work field has an appropriate metapackage, for instance
+ Each field of work has an appropriate metapackage, for instance
  \package{med-bio} for packages concerning molecular biology and
- medical genetics and \package{med-practice} which are helpful to
+ medical genetics and \package{med-practice}, which is helpful to
- manage a medical practice.  The sense of a metapackage is that you
+ manage a medical practice.  The sense of using metapackages is that you
- have to install only one single package using a package management
+ have to install only a single package using a package management
- software inside Debian to get all interesting packages which are
+ software tool to get all interesting packages that are
  necessary for a single task.  For
  instance a single command \\
  \hspace*{10mm}\texttt{apt-get install med-bio} \\
- results in installation of all applications inside Debian which are related to the field of
+ results in installation of all applications inside Debian that are related to the field of
  molecular biology and medical genetics.
-Line 629 
 molecular biology and medical genetics.
+Line 630 
 molecular biology and medical genetics.
  \label{figure:dmstats}
  \end{figure}
- Once a software is packaged, the effort for future maintenance is
+ Once a piece of software is packaged, the effort needed for its future maintenance is
- relatively small. Nevertheless, care is needed not to exhaust initial maintainer's
+ relatively small. Nevertheless, care is needed not to exhaust initial maintainers'
- enthusiasm since continuous maintenance requires investigation of submitted bug reports and following the "upstream"
+ enthusiasm since continuous maintenance requires investigation of submitted bug reports and following the ``upstream''
  development. Also, for many package maintainers, to understand
- the upstream code, to learn from it and to contribute back is a part
+ the upstream code, to learn from it, and to contribute back is a part
- of their motivation - and that often does not scale. In the longer run,
+ of their motivation -- and that often does not scale. In the longer run,
  continuous growth can only come through attracting additional contributors
- to the Debian project.   Debian welcome contributions and setup
+ to the Debian project.   Debian welcomes contributions and has set up
  \printurl{wiki.debian.org/SponsoredMaintainer}{Sponsored Maintainer} and
  \printurl{wiki.debian.org/DebianMaintainer}{Debian Maintainer} programs
  to lower the entry barrier.  Those programs allow anyone
-Line 646 
 obtaining of which requires going throug
+Line 647 
 obtaining of which requires going throug
  \printurl{www.debian.org/devel/join/newmaint}{Debian New Maintainer}
  process.    Moreover, the Debian policy is not requiring any kind of
  a \emph{Contributor Agreement}, thus ownership for any contributed work
- remains with the authors which is an important insensitive in the true
+ remains with the authors, which is an important incentive in the true
- spirit of open-source.  As a result, anyone
+ spirit of open source.  As a result, anyone
  interested can easily contribute and acceptance might be only a couple of emails away.
  % Should the Google Code-In and Google Summer of Code be mentioned?
-Line 670 
 interested can easily contribute and acc
+Line 671 
 interested can easily contribute and acc
  \DebianMed is not a derived distribution and is a part of the
  Debian project. \DebianMed relies on the core Debian infrastructure (\emph{e.g.} build farm
- across variety architectures, online repositories and mirrors, bug
+ for a variety of architectures, online repositories and mirrors, bug
  tracking system) and only complements it with an additional thin
- layer yet again functioning within Debian infrastructure.  That guarantees that overall development system remains robust
+ layer yet again functioning within Debian infrastructure.
- and not requiring extra effort from the \DebianMed sub-community.
+ That guarantees that the overall development system remains robust
- Moreover, adherence to common principles and organization
+ and does not require extra effort from the \DebianMed sub-community.
+ Moreover, adherence to common principles and organisation
  helps \DebianMed project members to improve efficiency and share
- overall maintenance cost since many actions could be done on the
+ overall maintenance cost because many actions can be performed on the
- entire pool of the maintained packages at once.  Admittedly, quite
+ entire pool of maintained packages at once.  Admittedly, quite
  frequently software products maintained by \DebianMed are of generic
- utility, \emph{e.g.}  Java or Python libraries,  and thus of interest to the
+ utility, such as Java or Python libraries,  and thus of interest to the
  Debian audience outside of the target scope of \DebianMed -- Medicine,
  as a result benefiting Debian as a whole.  Due to significant
  overlap,  boundaries between different Blends are not clearly defined and
-Line 694 
 artifactual.
+Line 696 
 artifactual.
  \end{figure}
  The success of the Debian Blends approach finds evidence in \emph{e.g.} a
- continuous growth of the number of packages inside Debian which are of
+ continuous growth of the number of packages inside Debian that are of
  interest for health care.  Taking the number of dependencies of some
  metapackages into account (see figure \ref{figure:dmstats}), only a
  small set of packages useful for medical care was available at the
-Line 703 
 with a gradient that perfectly reflects
+Line 705 
 with a gradient that perfectly reflects
  in this field can be observed.
  Besides the growth of the output of a project it is useful to
- characterize the commitment of people involved in the
+ characterise the commitment of people involved in the
  project.  It is important to ensure that fresh blood is coming into the
- project to compensate for the normal loss of supporters
+ project to compensate for the normal loss of supporters,
  which always happens in Free Software projects (people find new jobs
- with different orientation or less spare time for private reasons
+ with different orientations or have less spare time for private reasons
  etc.).  A raw measure for the activity of members might be their mails
- to the project mailing list.  Figure \ref{figure:authorstats}) shows
+ to the project mailing list.  Figure \ref{figure:authorstats} shows
  the number of mails from the ten most active posters on the \DebianMed
  mailing list.  This graph shows that the number of active supporters
  was growing constantly in the first years and is now at some constant
-Line 739 
 yet visible in the graphs).
+Line 741 
 yet visible in the graphs).
  The most active people committing packaging materials are shown in
  Figure \ref{figure:develstats}(a).  In the last year 26 developers did
-commits to the SVN and since the beginning of \DebianMed, 47 developers
+,108 commits to the SVN repository and since the beginning of \DebianMed, 47 developers
- did 5545 commits regarding packaging medical applications or
+ did 5,545 commits regarding packaging medical applications or
  documentation about the project.
  \subsubsection{Backports}
-Line 753 
 whole. For scientific packages and for
+Line 755 
 whole. For scientific packages and for
  packages reacting to continuous changes in the health care system,
  this is not an adequate situation. The long established
  \printurl{backports.debian.org}{Debian backports}
- service has being integrated within the official Debian.  It offers updates to
+ service has being integrated within the official Debian project.  It offers updates to
- the latest versions of packages while relying on the core components - whenever
+ the latest versions of packages while relying on the core components -- whenever
- possible - that were shipped with the official releases. This
+ possible -- that were shipped with the official releases. This
  compromise allows to brings maximal usability and maximal robustness
  together.
  \subsubsection{Role inside Debian}
  The Debian Pure Blends framework was mainly inspired by the \DebianMed
- needs.  The implementation \emph{e.g.} by the Debian Edu project -- another
+ needs.  The implementation by, for example, the Debian Edu project -- another
  Blend -- is far more advanced.  There are several reasons for this
- fact.  The main reasons is an enormous availability of software for education
+ fact.  The main reason is an enormous availability of software for education
  and the fact that a Norwegian company paid developers to work full
  time on this project.  \DebianMed profited from those
  technologies and generalised some tools from Debian Edu for all Blends.
-Line 772 
 Conversely, inside \DebianMed some new B
+Line 774 
 Conversely, inside \DebianMed some new B
  now enhance the easy preparation of metapackages.
  Beyond the metapackages, another service of the Blends is the
- so called web sentinel. It is a web portal to guide the contributors
+ so-called web sentinel. It is a web portal to guide the contributors
  to the current active tasks (packages) and their associated
  bug reports.
- The tasks pages are providing an overview about all the work fields
+ The task pages are providing an overview of all fields of work,
- like biology, medical imaging, practice management etc.  which are
+ such as biology, medical imaging, practice management, etc., that are
  covered by \DebianMed.  The list of all the packages is regenerated
  on a daily basis and includes some meta information to \emph{e.g.} point to
  relevant scientific publications and the description of the
- packages in this task.  So the output of the project can be easily \marginpar{just have a regular reference to the URL}
+ packages in this task.  The output of the project can be easily \marginpar{just have a regular reference to the URL}
  viewed at \printurl{http://debian-med.alioth.debian.org/tasks/}{the
    tasks page of \DebianMed}.
-Line 793 
 available, give information about the us
+Line 795 
 available, give information about the us
  results and inform about versions packaged for Debian as well as a
  notification about new releases.  Moreover, the visitor of
  these pages gets an easy option to provide a screenshot or a missing
- or translations as well as fixing a wrong translation, \emph{i.e.} everyone
+ translation as well as fixing a wrong translation, \emph{i.e.} everyone
  is visibly invited to contribute.
- There are also quality assurance tools developed for instance there is
+ There are also quality assurance tools developed; for instance there is
- an overview about
+ an overview of
  \printurl{http://debian-med.alioth.debian.org/bugs/}{all bugs
    concerning the packages in \DebianMed}.
  By providing this kind of tools for other Blends as well \DebianMed
- has set some cornerstone in the technical cooperation between user
+ has set a cornerstone in the technical cooperation between user
  oriented projects inside Debian.  This in turn awakes the interest of
  other Debian developers who might provide other tools for \DebianMed.
-Line 810 
 other Debian developers who might provid
+Line 812 
 other Debian developers who might provid
  The \DebianMed project serves as a common platform for all Free
  Software that may be utilised in medical care. Tools developed in
- computational biology are just a part of it because it is an important
+ computational biology are just a part of it because they are an important
  brick in medical sciences.
  The contributors to \DebianMed aim at providing the best possible
- platform for medical work. The Freedom for users to apply those
+ platform for medical work. The freedom of users to apply those
- technologies for local needs, \emph{i.e.} new scientific problems or
+ technologies for local needs, \emph{e.g.} new scientific problems or
  particular regulations in health care, are intrinsically connected
  with that prime ambition. The Debian Free Software Guidelines
  match those nicely and are applicable across platforms.
-Line 851 
 and shares its developments across platf
+Line 853 
 and shares its developments across platf
  That strong support within the community of users is essential for the
  development of software, for quality assurance, feedback on features,
- and not at least for the motivation of staff, all commercial
+ and not at least for the motivation of staff, that all commercial
- distributors are well aware of.  E.g., Red Hat has initiated Fedora as
+ distributors are well aware of.  For example, Red Hat has initiated Fedora as
- a free supplement to their commercial distribution.  It is this reason
+ a free supplement to their commercial distribution.  This is the reason
  why \DebianMed is part of Debian and why groups external to the Debian
- society, like BioLinux\marginpar{ref for BioLinux}, are also keen on close collaborations with the
+ society, like BioLinux\marginpar{ref for BioLinux}, are also keen on close collaboration with the
  community.
  \subsubsection{Approaching \DebianMed}
  Anybody already using regular Debian or Ubuntu and having a package installed
- the is maintained by \DebianMed, is already a user of \DebianMed.
+ that is maintained by \DebianMed, is already a user of \DebianMed.
  To have a new package shipped with the distribution, one
- can
+ can ask on the \printurl{lists.debian.org/debian-med}{\DebianMed
- as on the \printurl{lists.debian.org/debian-med}{\DebianMed
      mailing list}. The developers of the software would
- be helped with the packaging and offered guidance towards
+ be helped with the packaging process and offered guidance towards
  self-uploading future versions.
  %% I have difficulties with the remaining items. The style is
-Line 910 
 very suitable medium for this purpose.
+Line 911 
 very suitable medium for this purpose.
  for the sharing of data management, \emph{i.e.} the input for their
  tools that should be consistent for all tools contributing
  to a scientific workflow. While some ideas like \emph{e.g.} getData \marginpar{wiki.debian.org/getData},
- have been developed, this still needs to be amended to suite
+ have been developed, this still needs to be amended to suit
  the community better.
  Another aspect is education. Debian or Ubuntu are used in
-Line 922 
 course materials to be shared similarly
+Line 923 
 course materials to be shared similarly
  \section{Conclusions}
  The real use of Free Software for medical care is very heterogeneous,
- even if some fields like micro biology are
+ even if some fields like microbiology are
  better covered than others. The continuous updates of data and the
  addition of novel important tools for a general medical environment
  cannot be performed by a single individual. The adherence to a policy
  and the sharing of maintenance are basic technologies to allow
- inter-institutional software projects of different kind in health
+ inter-institutional software projects of different kinds in health
  care.
  Debian and its special dedication to medical software in \DebianMed,
- but also the technical infrastructure behind this community project
+ but also the technical infrastructure behind this community project,
  renders a comfortable solution.  The volunteers behind \DebianMed
- strive to support everybody's specific projects as best as they
+ strive to support everybody's specific projects as well as they
- possibly can. It is the particular challenge of users of Free
+ possibly can. It is a particular challenge of users of Free
  Software, to determine together with the community the available
  packages that already serve their needs or may be adapted
  respectively.
-Line 948 
 of the software that is important. openS
+Line 949 
 of the software that is important. openS
  slight variations, have adopted much of the principles that Debian
  spearheaded. We still need to advance mechanisms like the packaging
  format conversion tool \package{alien}
- to work together as Linux users, maybe along
+ to work together as Free Software users, maybe along
  the lines of the collaboration between Debian and Ubuntu. And we all,
  users, packagers and developers, need to understand more about cross
  platform developments that also includes Mac OS X and Windows.
-Line 964 
 platform developments that also includes
+Line 965 
 platform developments that also includes
  \section{Acknowledgements}
  Many thanks go to all contributors to Debian and \DebianMed,
- i.e.  the providers of the packages, the developers of the Free software
+ \emph{i.e.}, the providers of the packages, the developers of the Free Software
  and to all those who donate the resources for the project.

 Legend:



Removed from v.5594
 


changed lines


 
Added in v.5595
 Legend:



Removed from v.5594
 


changed lines


 
Added in v.5595
-Removed from v.5594
+Added in v.5595

	ViewVC Help
Powered by ViewVC 1.1.5