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South Australia Refuses To Stop Using An Expired, MS-DOS-Based Health Software (abc.net.au)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the jolly-swagman dept.

jaa101 writes: The Australian state of South Australia is being sued for refusing to stop using CHIRON, an MS-DOS-based software from the '90s that stores patient records. Their license expired in March of 2015, but they claim it would be risky to stop using it. CHIRON's vendor, Working Systems, says SA Health has been the only user of CHIRON since 2008 when they declined to migrate to the successor product MasterCare ePAS.
SA Health has 64 sites across South Australia -- all of which are apparently still using the MS-DOS-based health software from the 1990s.

9 of 230 comments (clear)

  1. Re:If they pay the license fee by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They've probably paid the development cost 10 times over by now ...

    This is why open source folks. Software vendors are assholes.

  2. Re:FreeDOS is still supported by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The original company wrote software which worked, they decided that had been a mistake. Easier to con people and then stiff them on consultancy fees fixing stuff it. The old system is simply a reminder to everyone how it used to be.

  3. Re:If they pay the license fee by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Fuck them! Keep using it!

  4. Re:If they pay the license fee by Keith+Mickunas · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Where does it indicate that the state is trying to force them to maintain a staff to support this software?

    It seems very wrong to me that the company can tell the state to stop using a piece of software that they have been using for years. They can provide a license that offers no support, no updates and no warranty of any kind.

  5. Re: If they pay the license fee by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The software should be considered abandonware and part of the public domain. Anyone should be free to download and use it for any purpose -- software vendor is not culpable for damages from its use.

  6. Good for them! by freeze128 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A DOS based software product is likely to be more secure from remote hacks, and from cloud-provider based security breaches. Thanks to VM technology, this program could be usable for decades!

    1. Re: Good for them! by fustakrakich · · Score: 5, Insightful

      the original vendor should be required to make their software maintainable past any business motivated EOL.

      The only way to do that is to revoke their copyright privileges so that somebody else can maintain it if they don't want to. *End of life* should mean end of copyright protections. Let's get a ballot referendum on it.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  7. Re:If they pay the license fee by fustakrakich · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Their "ownership" is really a government granted license, a privilege. And it can and should be revoked when they abuse it. End of life and end of the copyright license should occur at the same time.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  8. Re:If they pay the license fee by Rockoon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Sure, that's fine. But what you can do is simply declare the software to be in the Public Domain, since the only thing stopping that from happening automatically is government fiat in the first place!

    ...and Linux 1.0 is no longer GPL either, now its Public Domain!! Yay! ...wait...no?

    Careful what you wish for.

    --
    "His name was James Damore."