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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 Yvan256 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If I understand correctly, their CHIRON license expired in March of 2015 but Working Systems doesn't want to renew it.

    So Working Systems are suing South Australia for using a product without a license but won't renew said license.

    I can't wait to see the court verdict on this one. It smells like abandonware to me. It probably won't help with old software in the rest of the world but it could set a legal precedent for Australia. Microsoft doesn't want to sell Windows 7 licenses anymore in a few months? You can legally copy and use it.

  2. Supported/ Fuck "Supported." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Bits don't rot.

    "The company said a licence extension for CHIRON was not possible because it was too old and no longer supported."

    If you've never placed a support call in the 13 years since installation, if you've got backup hardware that will still run the stuff, if it's not connected to a network (MS-DOS presumably isn't), if it's not getting patched (because it's not connected to a network), then there's no risk of a change breaking the existing configuration -- and in those circumstances, what does it matter if it's not "supported?"

    Sorry, vendor. I'm sorry that your old software was so un-agile that it was actually "done" in the '90s and probably needs no further patches in order to remain fit for purpose until 2038. A pity for all vendors whose business models have pivoted towards Service As A Substitute for software, but fortunately, these guys never got on the upgrade treadmill. EPAS 2017: Hey, let's change the UX to "Flat!" this year so all the nurses have to relearn where the menu options are beneath that hamburger menu. It'll be hell for the end users, but the marketing guys think it looks great in a PowerPoint slide deck, and this is Enterprise Software; we're not trying to sell it to the physicians!

    And sorry, devs. Sorry that the human body works pretty much the same today as it did in 200,000 years ago. And that basic medical care works pretty much the same today as it did 50 years ago. And that even the bureacracy "required" to oversee the recordkeeping associated with "meatbag came in, was assigned bed, was assigned physician, who performed care" doesn't change as fast the latest Javascript framework.

    Some software is just Done.

    1. Re:Supported/ Fuck "Supported." by bazorg · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'm not a big fan of replying to AC, but here goes....

      When enterprise-grade software is supplied, normally there are plenty of contractual terms that go with it. Requiring that the whole stack (operating system, database, application, whatever else) is under current support from the suppliers is a good demand in exchange for offering guarantees of break-fix support. The company providing support for the patient care component does not want to have the customer making claims of breach of SLA when the database component failed and its respective supplier has halted development and won't take new trouble tickets for the specific version in use since 10 years ago.

      In the MS world of licensing where I have some modest experience, I've seen that it is common for MS to charge an annual maintenance fee in return for a number of entitlements for the user. Things like access to patches and upgrade rights (ie: you don't buy the software licence again when a new version comes up, just grab the new version and move on) are not unusual. On top of this, I've also seen independent software vendors and MS technology partners build up more stuff that goes on top of the MS product that was licensed in the first place. These vendors sometimes use the same model of maintenance payments every year to have some sort of cash coming from those customers who bought additional software or customisations to the base product. If the maintenance payments are not made to MS, they do not switch things off (to my knowledge at least) but if the customer changes their mind, MS will charge lapsed years or ask for a new licence to be purchased. Independent vendors may have their own policies in relation to the software they develop on the MS application/stack.

      Having read both articles (wow!), I get the impression that while this state in Australia used to be but is no longer a large customer account. They are really the only people using this software any more, and it is a pain in the backside to make a proper upgrade path just for them. They opted out of incremental upgrades, and now a big bang will look expensive and complicated. It is also possible that the software vendor is under obligation to offer guarantees IF they do offer another year or more of maintenance or extend the licence for their software. In what appears to be an exercise in bridge burning, they want the customer to stop using their software unless they completely replace it with a supported version. It's not very Microsoft-y thing to do, but between MS licensing rules, independent vendor licensing rules and specific contracts made when this deal was a big one for a whole state in Australia, this might have exceptional treatment agreed somewhere.

      To me it looks like both parties want out of the contract they have and the company going to court is another way to put pressure on the other side.
      Some have written in this forum that this would never be a problem if they just used open source software, which is IMHO optimistic. Legacy crap is complicated for everyone, 10 or 20 years of it will make anyone want to have a fresh start. To paraphrase another favourite AC of mine, they really should go with supported apps, that get upgraded and updated on the fly by a cloud services provider. Legacy programmes can be a pain in the backside, compared to centrally managed apps. Cloud! Apps!

  3. 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.

  4. Re:If they pay the license fee by ilguido · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You cannot force a company to sell licenses for a software they don't support anymore and maintain staff to maintain a piece of software the revenues cannot justify to.

    Yes, but who is saying that they need "support" and a staff? That piece of software has worked for some 25 years now, I supposed that the support they need is none and they're just happy to be able to use it.

  5. 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!”
  6. Re:If they pay the license fee by fustakrakich · · Score: 4, Informative

    Eminent domain. Works for land, it can work for copyrights and patents. And yes, American courts have done so.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  7. NOT MS-DOS by sc0ob5 · · Score: 4, Informative
    CHIRON is not MS-DOS based, It runs on SunOS and is delivered by a terminal session.

    There are a number of other old patient administration systems (all UNIX based, mostly SunOS but OpenVMS as well, all delivered by terminal session) that are in use currently and hospitals that use them are being migrated to the new single system but it's a slow process as the new system does more than just patient administration, it replaces a number of other old systems as well.

    So that it's MS-DOS based is just plain wrong.

    I don't want to get into the licensing issues with Working Systems.

    How do I know this? I work for the department..