One of my biggest regrets at PortBlue was that I didn't advocate free standards enthusiastically enough. If HIRS--PortBlue's emergency response software--had them, people could easily use it with their other tools and with other people. Those advantages would improve preparedness and response, and save lives. Further, if HIRS published data in a free standard and people could cheaply and easily use it with other systems, more people would buy given those advantages. Open drives adoption.

Hospitals, governments and others purchasing emergency response software and communication software should demand open data standards, but which? Are CAP, EM-XML, EDXL suspended in animation? If you have knowledge about people and organizations using these standards, please add them to the Open Emergency Response map. The federal governement uses purse power to pimp National Information Exchange Model:

The NIEM 0.1 establishes a single standard Extensible Markup Language (XML) foundation for exchanging information between DHS, DOJ, and supporting domains, such as Justice, Emergency Management, and Intelligence. The base technology for the NIEM is the Global JXDM. The NIEM will leverage both the extensive Global JXDM reference model and the comprehensive Global JXDM XML-based framework and support infrastructure.

"I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

Mr. Dave Winer ought to align his pulpit at this problem, and bully.




  ¶ 10:51 PM