Free and Open Source EMRs
Free (Libre) and Open Source Software is the combined ideology of two software development camps. The first, is the Free Software Movement. The Free Software Foundation believes that software licenses should not be used to control people in inappropriate ways. (They use the word "free" as in freedom, not "free" as in no cost). The UK acronym is FLOSS.
The Open Source movement is a group that believes that software is best developed in an open collaborative manner. The Open Source Initiave is a group that evaluates all kinds of software licenses that enable this collaborative development.
The two groups often collaborate, the most popular open source license is the Gnu General Public License (GPL) which was developed by the Free Software Foundation.
GPLMedicine.org is a website that advocates the exclusive use of the GPL in Electronic Medical Record Systems
LinuxMedNews.com is the community blog of the Free and Open Source Medical Software Community. Any news regarding the Free and Open Source Medical Software community usually appears first there or on the OpenHealth mailing list. The community is beginning to gain traction withing the Medical Informatics community especially after the creation of the AMIA Open Source Working Group
So far there are several very important projects within the Free and Open Source space.
ClearHealth - EHR and Practice Management System
FreeMED - EHR and Practice Management System
OpenEMR - EHR and Practice Management System
[1] - Medical Billing Engine
Vista Office - Soon to be released CMS sponsered EHR and Practice Management System
WorldVista - EHR and Hospital Management System
One EMR that is Free but not Open Source is VersaForm EMR Basic Edition. It is available by download at VersaForm and is supported by the publisher.