First and foremost OpenHIE is a community of practice! Our Contribution Policy is simple: No matter how you want to contribute voluntary contributions are gratefully accepted as long as the OpenHIE community and all downstream users are allowed to use those contributions for our public benefit mission.

There are several types of contributions we invite individuals or organizations to make for this cause:  

• Tangible contributions of intellectual property such as documentation, ideas and inventions, and other technical solutions to health information sharing problems
• In-kind and financial donations to support our activities
• Contributions of your time and your efforts to communicate and cooperate with each other involved in the OpenHIE initiative
• Spread the word! The easiest way to give back is to talk about OpenHIE with local community members or start a local community chapter.
• Share your OpenHIE story though a short article about how OpenHIE has influenced you, your project or community...stories can be shared on the OpenHIE website

OpenHIE accepts contributions such as documentation, images, or other creative works and distributes all contributions under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. 

If you have questions about any aspect of the OpenHIE Contribution Policy, please contact support@ohie.org.

Software

To date, the OpenHIE community works with various software organizations to develop and build conformance to the OpenHIE specifications.  We encourage all tool builders to actively participate within the OpenHIE community, regardless of their business models (ie, open source or proprietary).  We generally do not release software as a community product.  Nevertheless, the development of community tools (such as conformance testing software) might be needed in the future, and those activities will be made available under permissive open licenses approved by the Open Source Initiative.

Intellectual Property

• We accept contributions from people who identify themselves with an account on OpenHIE websites (an "OpenHIE ID"). Each person's profile, and all other materials he or she posts on OpenHIE websites, is available to the public. See the OpenHIE Privacy Policy for more information.
• We accept contributions Royalty-free. This means by contributing to OpenHIE websites you are agreeing materials are available to the global public good for their use without the need to pay any royalties or fees.

In-Kind and Donations

The support of OpenHIE stakeholders helps to make the following activities and more possible.

• Standards Development/Use Activities
• Community Management Activities
• Community Development Activities

Take a look at how you or your organization might be able to Contribute to OpenHIE.