What is Pract-Eze Source software?
It means that the source code, the original text of the program, is
available for anyone to download. Any programmer with a moderate level
of skill can turn this source code into a fully functional version of
the program. Pract-Eze Dental is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL),
the standard open source license. This license ensures that the
software will always remain free and nobody can take away your freedom
to use it. Pract-Eze Dental is Copyrighted by Dr Jordan Sparks to prevent
anyone from turning it into a proprietary system. Anyone is free to
copy, distribute, and change the software, or to do whatever they want
with it and they don't have to tell anyone as long as the copyright
notice and license remains attached.
How much does it cost ?
The GPL license does permit and encourage charging for distribution and support. See the support and fees
section for prices. But, as with all truly free software, users don't
actually have to pay the distribution fee or support fee in order to
use the software. You could just make a free copy from a friend and be
completely within your rights. You can also have an unlimited number of
copies running on computers at your office without any licensing
restrictions or dongles (hardware-enforced limits on the number of
copies of a program).
Why is it so inexpensive ?
Fundamentally, it is because
it doesn't cost us anything when other people use it. The distribution
fee covers our costs and any support we provide is paid for separately.
The question you really need to ask is, "Why is other dental software
so expensive?" Two factors that have driven our costs down are the
powerful open source MySQL database, and the very efficient C#
programming language which lets us produce more features in less time.
Why is it open source?
Because we want this
software to become the world standard dental software. We want to make
it easy to access and share data. We are tired of the restrictive
policies of the current dental software companies. We want the user to
always have total control, not the software company. And most of all,
we want software that just works well.
What if you go out of business?
If we go out of
business, the situation would be very different than with any other
dental software. Since anyone has the freedom to develop and support
Pract-Eze Dental, and since there is already a large existing customer base,
there will always be plenty of incentive for various companies to build
on what we started. But, of course, we don't plan on going anywhere. We
see it as a resource for the dental community that can never be taken
away from us. Since it cannot be bought out, it will always continue to
grow and benefit everyone.
What is the advantage of having an open database?
The
structure of the data is available for all to see and use (the data is
still very secure). It is totally different than the proprietary format
that all other dental software uses. Other programs can only export
certain fields. In Pract-Eze Dental, you have access to and control over
every single bit of data. Your data will never need to be converted
again.
What restrictions does the free license impose?
If you don't modify the program, there are no restrictions whatsoever. If you are a programmer, you can look in the Developer's section for details on exactly what is allowed. Basically, any modified versions of Pract-Eze Dental must also be made available
as free software under the GPL.
Who is doing all this work?
Dr. Jordan Sparks has done
most of the programming. He has done the many thousands of hours of
programming in his spare time over the last few years. But since the
software is now becoming so popular, he is beginning to cut back on
dentistry to devote more of his time to programming. You can expect the
pace of new features to only increase as time goes by.