View source for OpenEMR is not Affiliated with LibreHealth

=OpenEMR is not Affiliated with LibreHealth=

==Quick Summary==

Despite what you may of heard, OpenEMR is NOT joining hands with
LibreHealth.

Rather than focusing on creating a superior and excellent product,
LibreHealth is instead focusing their resources on false marketing
machinations to claim endorsement from the great brand that is OpenEMR.

OpenEMR is doing everything it can to combat these false marketing
machinations.

And OpenEMR will not be derailed from its continued focus on producing a
superior and excellent product.

==More Details==

Several prior members of the community forked the project in April of
2016. This is not an uncommon event in the open source world and is not
necessarily a bad thing sometimes driving competition to produce a
better product. Ironically, one of the main stated goals of the fork was
modernization, which has simply not been the case, and their fork has
missed out on the hundreds of bug fixes, security fixes, features, and
modernization improvements that make OpenEMR what it is.

Recently, rather than focusing on their product, they have instead
shifted to false marketing and advertising to claim endorsement from the
solid OpenEMR brand.

Their marketing has also attempted to give the appearance that OpenEMR
is a stale project. This is simply not the case, with downloads of
OpenEMR going greater than 10,000 per month (yes, 10,000 per month!!!), 54
separate developers contributing to the code over the last 12 months!,
an active forum providing support for users, and the transparent support
from a non profit organization.

One particular damaging stategy that LibreHealth pursued was to garner
the endorsement of the Software Freedom Conservancy. Notably, the
Software Freedom Conservancy appeared to have done minimal, if any, due
diligence on their part and never contacted the OpenEMR community or the
OEMR organization. The OpenEMR community sent the following letter to the Librehealth
community and to the Software Freedom Conservancy on 11/17/2016
regarding their press release:
<pre>
OpenEMR, open-emr.org, has resulted from a vibrant community of
volunteers and contributors working together for over a decade. We, the
OpenEMR community, remain dedicated to maintaining OpenEMR's excellence
while guarding this free, open source, software solution for electronic
medical records. We do not endorse this use of the OpenEMR name to
promote this project and we do not believe that uncoordinated
development efforts are in the best interests of users.

Please immediately remove from this announcement and any promotional
materials any suggestion that the current OpenEMR leadership or
community is supportive of this project. Those mentioned in the
announcement are no longer active in our community and are not in any
way entitled to speak for it.

Signed,
Arnab Naha, Brady Miller, Cathy Stillwell
Chelălău Ionuț Mihai, John Tenny, Matthew Vita
Ray Magauran, Roberto Vasquez, Robert Down
Rod Roark, Scott Wakefield, Sena Palanisami
Shameem Hameed, Sherwin Gaddis, Srinivasa Rao Challa
Stephen Waite, Tomas Vilhelm

Current members and leaders
of the OpenEMR community
</pre>

It is also notable that when OpenEMR members reached out to LibreHealth
members publicly in a objective and professional way, they were attacked
in an ad hominem style.

==What you can do to help OpenEMR!==

1. Keep using OpenEMR.

2. Keep participating in the OpenEMR community.

3. Keep supporting [[OpenEMR_Professional_Support|OpenEMR vendors]].

4. Send a message to the Software Freedom Conservancy that you disagree
with their teaming up with Librehealth to claim endorsement of the
OpenEMR brand. They can be emailed at project-intake@sfconservancy.org .
And if you donate or plan to donate to their organization, demand they
remediate the damage they have done before placing your donation.

5. Send a message to LibreHealth that you disagree with their false
marketing and advertising.

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