Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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.

3 of 230 comments (clear)

  1. 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.

  2. 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!”