I've recently started working for a start-up company. This company is unfortunately neither open-source, nor in the health care spectrum, but I can tell you from experience, if your going to start writing a new application (especially in C/C++) you'll find that a lot of people have already solved most of the problems you are trying to solve, but unless your developing GPL software, many these solutions are not going to be available to you. It has become difficult for smaller software companies to be effective without developing under the GPL.

I would encourage anyone releasing any code, no matter how small to use the GPL over other "less restrictive" license, by doing so your not only giving your code to the community, but you are increasing the pace at which open-source software will become the only cost effective solution for all but the most well funded companies.