There's an elegantly articulated post in the Blackboard blog about educational choice and diversity and an interesting thread of conversation among the Sakai community commenting on it. Though the post is superficially supportive of choice, openness, and diversity, it seems to me that it's more a marketing attempt to lay claim to the platform on which scholarly technologies will run. In other words, choice and diversity as long as you get to it through the Blackboard platform and pay them for it.  

The commentary from the Sakai community have been diverse. Some have asked good questions like "how can we ensure open collaboration that will benefit all." Others have noted that the Sakai community is already well on it's way to delivering the platform that Bb is marketing but has yet to really commit to (note the disclaimer at the end of the post). Brad Wheeler, CIO at Indiana University made some very lucid points about the purposeful design of the Sakai community and our IP that permits Blackboard to use Sakai software to accomplish its goals, and about the divergence of their goals from those of the education community, and probably most importantly about where the education community should focus it's attention.   

It seems to me that the education community, and particularly the Sakai community is better positioned to deliver and sustain the platform. We have a proven ability to innovate and have been on the platform course for some time. Further, it seems in the community's best interest to keep the platform open and encourage those interested (commercial and non-commercial) to innovate and build on it. A key motivation for many of the universities who have chosen the Sakai path is to regain control over their destiny on the technology that is so core to delivering on their mission. Relegating the platform to a monopoly just isn't consistent with this goal.

Blackboard realizes that if they are to achieve their revenue growth and profit goals they must do more than sell course management systems. They clearly have their sights set on owning the platform and monetizing anything that runs on it. The Sakai community also has it's sights set on becoming the platform and doing it in a way that is open and accessible to everyone: truly providing choice and diversity as Blackboard's marketing positions their ProjectNG. I think this puts their goals for the platform at odds with the Sakai community's goals for the platform because if it's "owned" (by Bb) then institutions will continue to have insufficient control over their own destiny.

In my estimation, Sakai's challenge won't be developing and sustaining the best platform on which to build and connect educational software and content. Our challenge will be competing with Blackboard's powerful marketing machine.  We'll need to be cautious as we proceed to make sure we don't help feed the machine in ways that prevent the market at large from understanding their options.

I haven't seen the actual gartner survey yet but based on the interview posted this morning in Campus Technology it apparently points to two interesting trends:

1. Many are moving to open source (partially driven by a rejection of Blackboard's behavior).
2. A non-trivial amount are moving toward "home grown" though it appears that this is more about "assembling" from small pieces loosley joined, rather than the traditional "build."

It's not at all surprising that Gartner Research Director Marti Harris says:

[Blackboard is] seen as [having] a certain arrogance to think that they developed something [themselves], when so many academics feel they've contributed to it all along. I can't speak to the legal issues at hand, but that's the perception, and it's global. I hear that wherever I go.

So has the suit had an impact on our clients? One thing I hear from clients is that it's irritating to think that their license fees are going to support a big legal battle. They feel as if they're paying for that.

It's good to know that Blackboards customers realize they are paying for senseless litigation driven by arrogance instead of product innovation or support.

It's also interesting that Gartner believes it's accelerating interest in Desire2Learn, Sakai, and Moodle. I've been living and breathing the movement toward open source for some time so none of this is surprising.

What's really interesting is point #2 about the trend toward assembling solutions based on Web 2.0 applications living out in the cloud (if you're playing buzzword bingo you just scored). I was in Sausalito last week with some customers and Michael Korcuska talking about future directions and Nate Angell whipped together an example that mirrors much of the functionality found in Sakai/Moodle/Blackboard/Etc. using Ning as the base framework and tools like Hiveminder, pbWiki, and DabbleDB. Keep an eye out for a Jing screencast of what he did. It's representative of what many are doing on campus today.

I'm glad to see the Sakai community recognizing this and envisioning a future in which Sakai plays a role making it more effective to do that sort of thing while dealing with some of the things that make assembling something like that difficult, hard to support, or hard to scale.

I'm here at Sun's Education Research Community Conference today in San Francisco where the theme of the conference is "The Power of Communities." Throughout the event so far participants have been engaged in dialog about the various aspects of community and how the value of participation and contribution in various communities is realized by various stakeholders. Sun and other corporate participants discussed many ways in which participation in open source communities has been a driver of innovation and a closer more collaborative connection to their customers. Students spoke about the value of learning using open source technologies and the value of participating in open source communities. Educators from a variety of institutions all over the world shared ways that open source software and participation in open communities is giving them new tools and new ways to engage learners.

At the opening session Joe Hartley presented an interesting idea he referred to as the personal community map. See photo below. Joe visually mapped his own involvement in various communities based on his level of commitment to the community and the corresponding value to him and to the community. It's an interesting way to think about it.

Yesterday afternoon during one of the general sessions I peeked at my iPhone to see what was going on and I scanned the headlines in one of my Google alerts. Just below an article about Sun's completion of the MySQL acquisition was another article in the steady stream of dismay at Blackboard's "victory" over Desire2Learn.

The event here in San Francisco really highlights for me the stark contrast between a company like Sun and a company like Blackboard. Sun's is clearly aligned with the values of the education community. Today's dialog has been an open, participatory dialog between the people of Sun, their customers, their partners, and even student 'ambassadors.' During one of the sessions someone asked a question about how Sun would recoup the investment in MySQL and part of the response was the transformative value to Sun of the MySQL community culture. This is a company clearly interested in creating business value in harmony with their various communities... including the education community.

Blackboard, on the other hand, is a company who's actions are simply misaligned with the values of the education community. They are a bad actor who's aggressive and offensive use of a bad software patent is stifling a space that needs competition and the innovation capacity of communities like Sakai and Moodle. The recent verdict awarded Blackboard $3.1M and the right to request an injunction preventing Desire2Learn from selling it's product in the United States, which they've apparently done. The verdict is disappointing but predictable given the patent's current standing with the USPTO and the track record of the East Texas court. I'll be very surprised if the patent holds up to the scrutiny of the pending re-examination. The most disturbing thing about this whole mess to me is the waste. Millions of dollars of the education community's license fees paid to Blackboard and Desire2Learn aren't going into R&D, they aren't being used to innovate and provide better products or services, the money is being used to 'cheat the system' to achieve one goal: Total domination of the eLearning market at all cost. How long will the education community continue to fund their behavior? I empathize with customers of Blackboard's who feel locked in. Fortunately there are now alternatives like Sakai and Moodle that have become attractive alternatives. For many of Blackboard's customers who are facing a migration anyway, especially the WebCT customers, the timing might be just right to get on a better path. A path that leverages the "power of communities" to further the impact of technology in scholarly endeavors and improve access to education.

Other key resources to learn more about the verdict, the patent, and the pending re-examinations:
Blackboard Wins Patent-Infringement Case Against Rival Courseware Provider, The Chronicle

Our 'official response' from the Sakai Foundation on Michael Korcuska's blog

Michael Feldstein's blog

Steven Down's summary of others' comments

Yahoo Pipe for Bb patent news

Local software firm loses patent suit, The Record