Thinking Outside the Box in Open Source

As a customer or colleague of Kitware, you are undoubtedly aware of our commitment to open source embodied in repositories such as VTK, ITK, and Paraview. You are probably also aware of CMake, CTest, and CDash, some of the tools that we developed for managing these projects and the large, distributed contributor bases that support them. What you may not be aware of is the developing use of the CMake family and our software processes in other, less traditional, open source communities. Providing open source community development support and adapting, re-targeting, and standing up our tools in these settings is a growing component of our open source activity. It is also one that promises to extend the benefits of open source to other vibrant, growing, and diverse ecosystems.

To see these tools in action, check out the blogs and videos made by our own Joe Snyder for OSEHRA, the Open Source Electronic Health Record Alliance. Joe explains to the OSEHRA community (1) how to use open source tools and processes to generate tests for Mumps code, graphical environments, and browser based applications; and (2) how to drive these tests via CMake/CTest/CDash, submit code for open source review, and stand up a testing environment where the code can be exercised. These tutorials are part of Kitware's support for the burgeoning OSEHRA community as we pursue open source for electronic health records.