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gizmoguy4242 asks: "notHarvard.com is pioneering a new business model by offering free educational courses in an effort to 'attract new customers, reduce customer acquisition costs, keep them on-site longer, and drive revenue.' As an example, Metrowerks set up a site called 'codewarrioru.com' where participants can 'learn how to program in C++' and gain other valuable skills. 'The university site is driving revenue by giving users a context in which they can both learn about the product and make purchases when appropriate.' Obviously, the notion of free, quality education is attractive, especially in a 'do-it-on-your-own-time' medium. On the other hand, the privatization of education raises all sorts of philosophical questions: can corporations -- whose fundamental interest is economic -- maintain academic neutrality when doing so negatively impacts them? Can they be trusted to present educational ideas from an objective standpoint, or is this the precursor to corporate-driven thought control?"

David Adams of Akopia e-mailed me to let me know that Akopia has bought Minivend. Minivend is an open source project, and the creator along with several top developers will be joining Akopia. Akopia has Tallyman, which is also an e-commerce package, with different strengths. Why does this matter? The license is the GPL, and this is one of those situations where the open source project beats the closed source hands down. Congrats to Akopia.