In a special way, the OpenMRS Community would like to thank Mekom Solutions for the amazing contribution that they have continuously done towards advancing the OpenMRS core platform and reference application modules, mentoring and helping others on Talk, Slack, and IRC, together with other community activities. For those who may not be following this closely, a significantly big percentage of the commits to the core platform and various reference application modules are done by developers from Mekom Solutions. Even the release manager for the next core platform release, works for Mekom Solutions. This is the model which led to the birth of OpenMRS, where implementing organisations started to work together towards solving common problems. If more organisations emulate this, we would stop lamenting for lack of a team of core developers, and have a sustainable model for advancing our noble cause.
Partners In Health has done this and is still doing so. Therefore having another organisation, Mekom Solutions, get involved in a similar way, is very exciting news for the OpenMRS Community.
Thanks a bunch @dkayiwa for this. I did put a lot of my own sweat into this and I am grateful that it is acknowledged (icing on the cake: by you). But as you said I’m only steering, there is a great team behind it! Kudos to all @Mekom staff members for “getting it” and being dedicated to the community.
Btw I think you raise a very important point about resourcing core community technical activities. And this point is also valid for the Bahmni Coalition.
We try to align our partners and clients business needs with the OpenMRS/Bahmni roadmaps. I would encourage all orgs that do provide paid-for OpenMRS/Bahmni services to be uncompromising in regards to community involvement. It is ok to come to open source solutions in the first place because they are free, or because there is no vendor lock-in, or because of the flexible licensing… etc ; but the only final outcome is that open source means collaborative development, full stop.
