Data is not software

Data Is Not Software

The most persistent confusion in modern homeopathy is the belief that a repertory and the software showing it are the same thing. They are not.

A repertory is a structured, copyrighted body of homeopathic data: the rubrics, remedies, gradings, and references compiled by editors over decades. It is equivalent to the text of a book.

A software program—for example, Complete Dynamics, Radar Opus, or Vithoulkas Compass—is merely a viewer, organizer, and analytical tool for reading that data, just as a PDF reader displays a book but does not own or create the book’s content.

The Source–Interface Confusion

Because modern repertories (especially Complete Repertory and Synthesis) are distributed inside software, many users and even teachers refer to them by the software’s name:

“I used Radar,”“We repertorized with Complete Dynamics,”“The case was done in Isis.”

In truth, these statements identify only the container, not the content.

Behind those programs stand one or more repertory databases — such as Complete Repertory, Synthesis Adonis, Murphy’s Meta III, and Saine’s repertory, among others. Each has its own structure, philosophy, and intellectual ownership. When a practitioner fails to name which repertory is being used, they are effectively obscuring the scientific and historical lineage of the data.

Why the Confusion Persists

1. Marketing design – Software companies promote their brand rather than the repertory’s editor, to appear as the full intellectual source.

2. Educational shortcuts – Teachers and schools often train students inside one interface and use the software’s name as shorthand for the entire repertory.

3. User interface dominance – The repertory window, search bar, and analysis chart all bear the software logo. In contrast, the repertory’s name is often hidden in a drop-down menu or small header.

4. Licensing opacity – Contracts between repertory editors and software firms are private, leading to misunderstandings about who created or owns what.

The Consequences

• Loss of attribution – Repertory editors, whose data form the scientific core of these systems, often go uncredited in publications.

• Historical distortion – Students may think Complete Dynamics “is” Kent’s or Complete Repertory, or that Synthesis belongs to the software rather than its editor.

• Legal ambiguity – When repertory content migrates between programs without a clear citation, disputes arise over unauthorized copying or derivative use.

• Research incoherence – Case reports become untraceable; reviewers cannot know which version or edition of the repertory the author used.

Restoring Clarity

The distinction should always be explicit in professional writing and teaching:

Repertorization performed using Complete Repertory 2026 (Complete Dynamis 34.12).

That single line restores transparency: it names both the data and the tool, much like referencing a dataset and the software used to analyze it in any scientific discipline.

A Broader Cultural Issue

This confusion also symbolizes the wider problem described throughout your essay — the substitution of technical convenience for intellectual credit, as long as practitioners equate data with the tool that reads it; repertory science risks being absorbed into anonymous software branding. The preservation of homeopathy’s scholarly identity, therefore, depends on maintaining that clear line between the repertory and the program.

Roger van Zandvoort