Andreas Tille <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > A few months ago, you wrote the maintainer/author of a particular > > application that allowed the user in look-up medications and find out > > information about this. As I recall, the gist of the letter was a > > query to determine it's license so that it could be included with > > Debian. > > > > I am wondering what the outcome of the above-mentioned > > correspondence was?
> I remember that something was discussed here. I think if someone > would have told me that there is a thing we use with a DFSG-free > license than I would have put it on our TODO-list (i.e. the Debian-Med > web pages). But I did not and so I'm afraid nobody cared about :-(. > > Could some interested person please do some research if there is a > free license. Perhaps the people on debian-legal can help to find > the right decision. Sorry, I currently do not have the slightes > time slice to investigate here. :-( This is the letter on the archive is what I am referring to: <http://lists.debian.org/debian-med/2002/debian-med-200209/msg00001.html> Did the author, Alex Caldwell M.D., ever reply? I am curious about the data itself; this is good stuff: lortab acetaminophen/hydrocodone (500/2.5) Adult Dosing pain, mild-moderate [1-2 tabs PO q4-6h prn] Max: 8 tabs/24h Peds Dosing Peds dosing is currently unavailable or not applicable for this drug. Contraind/Caut. hypersens. to drug/class/compon. depressed respiratory fxn caution if head injury (etc) I am just wondering where he pulled it from and if it is public domain/free. If he did not reply, I shall write him myself if you like. > > I personally have been looking at Sleepycat's new XML Database > > product which is in the alpha stage. Perhaps glancing is a better word > > for it as I have not been able to compile it although from what I > > understand there is a simple fix. The goal, though, would be to place > > the free drug data (the basic raw data) from the FDA within a > > Sleepycat XML databases so it could be shipped with Debian with a > > dependency upon the Sleepycat XML-DB. > > > > Do you still see a need for this? > I have to relay on medical experts if there is a need for a certain > product. If it is free I try to package it (or try find other > people who might do the packaging stuff). Thank you Andreas. This does seem like a nice way to work with the data, as opposed to a web-app. I wonder if we could just place the data in a Berkeley XML DB and then we (or someone else may write one soon), a generic Berkeley XML-DB viewer (updater, etc). Just wondering out loud about it but it is neat that he put the data in XML. Elizabeth
