I’m new to the open source model. To supporting it. To participating in the community. To seeing how it’s built and how features are added. But I’ve been watching for nigh unto 15 years. And I’m here to tell you: higher ed is generally bullish on software derived from this open source model.
It’s almost as if open source were the answer to all the budgetary , visionary, and advocacy issues we all face. From Community Jr. College to State School to Private – we’ve summoned open source to give us more freedom, more features, more revenue, more integration points, more responsiveness to our constituencies, and more control of our destinies.
Software derived from and supported by the open source model is more and more under investigation by more and more institutions of higher ed. Cautiously under investigation in some cases, but under investigation nevertheless.
Sakai began around 2004 initially as a collaboration between University of Michigan, Indiana University, MIT and Stanford. By 2005 Foundation Staff on the Sakai CLE were 5 people- salaries based mostly on contributions from higher ed IT.
Institutions joined up. Commercial affiliates formed. Synergies developed. The coalition worked diligently. Advocated. Listened. Built. Deployed. Software developed by higher ed for higher ed and ‘owned’ by all.
Very cool.
Except when too many institutions want to take and not give back.
That was the message I was shocked to internalize last week when one of the chief Sakai advocates and architects this past 8 years, Dr. Chuck Severance, defended his decision to take employment from – Blackboard. He took a position at Blackboard that furthers his goals (shared by the Sakai community) of making learning technologies interoperable. Below, website by website, is a visual of his considerable breadth of reach. From development acknowledgements at Moodlerooms, and Blackboard’s Edugarage , to standards work at IMS Global and thought leadership published by Gilfus, Delta Initiatives, Campus Technology, edu1World and InsideHigher Ed. (As well as a frequently referenced though ‘unpublished’ work…!).
But today, according to Dr. Chuck, since about 4 months ago, Sakai Foundation Staff actively working on the Sakai CLE (version 2.9 now) is zero. Instead, the only remaining +dedicated+ release management resources moving the release forward come from commercial affiliates, NOT higher ed.
In Dr. Chuck’s call to action posting last week, he says, “Does it bother you that about 40 higher educations stopped supporting the Sakai Foundation over the past five years?” We remember the past five years- In budgetary terms, everyone ran for the hills, dug in where we could. The difficulty is that if higher ed doesn’t sustain this effort, who will?
He goes on to ask, “Are you uncomfortable that for-profit companies already provide all of the long-term committed resources for the Sakai CLE product?”
I am. I am very uncomfortable. Are you?
