Blackboard's "Pledge" Not to Sue Open Source Software

Another anonymous reader writes with a link to the Inside Higher Education site. Those folks are reporting on Blackboard's 'pledge' not to sue open source projects used by universities and colleges. The Blackboard patent on educational groupware filed last year has come under a lot of fire, with many organizations simply seeking an open-source alternative. This newest peace offering to higher education groups has the Sakai open source consortium more than a little bit nervous. If Blackboard meant to set people at ease, all it has managed to do was confirm to onlookers that it 'wants to keep its legal options open.' Blackboard insists that this new pledge affords universities a number of legal privileges, and is designed to make educators 'sleep easy at night.' Somehow, very few people seem reassured. Update: 02/02 17:34 GMT by Z : Bad first link fixed.

Comments

"not evil" for now, until aquired/sold

[denis-The-menace]

Even with all good intentions in mind, all pleadges/promises will go out the windows when somebody buys the company.

Either donate the patent to OSDL patent commons project or start enforcing it.
(If you don't enforce now it makes it harder to enforce it later when greed kicks in.)

Aren't SW patent wonderful?

Blackboard's Quality

[Surr3al]

Well, it would be one thing if blackboard actually had something to offer, but unfortunately in comparison with other open source (or web apps brewed within the edu) there really isn't much contrast. Meaning, if Blackboard had some desirable features that would be worth paying for, it would be more tempting to purchase it, obviously. Unfortunately, every feature they currently offer can be coded internally rather easily (my school proves this quite well), or it can be added in by some other module - for instance a php nuke forum.

Maybe in realizing this - but realizing the latter point that they would be competing against their own potential customers decided it would just be really bad PR.

Re:Blackboard's Quality

[Fallingcow]

The three big uses of it here:

1) file dump, like you said. PDFs, or, more often, .doc files.

2) the forums get used every now and then. Mostly just for online classes, really.

3) grade reporting. Some departments/colleges use it, others don't.

NONE of these things requires Blackboard, and all could be replicated by a single competent sysadmin/coder in maybe a week's time, including ironing out (most) problems and making it easy and secure for the professors and students to use.

why all the hate?

[iceph03nix]

The one perspective that I havent seen in this whole debate is that BB is just trying to cover its ass on a legal basis. Think about it. Your a BB exec and you see many similar programs appearing and you have no legal claim to the technology. What would happen if someone built a very similar program and grabbed the copyright. They could then Sue BB for many monies and possibly take over. And I truly believe that they intend to honor there promise of not suing freeware/OSS system providers, clear up until they are "under new management"

That's how it normally starts

[roman_mir]

If you want to start a war with someone, first thing you should do is assure the opposite side of your eternal love and cooperation. Then, when the opposite side is all calmed down and relaxed hit them with the biggest hammer you've got and aim right for the head.

Re:So no litigation

[niiler]

Bingo. This story looks like a company trying to put a positive spin on the fact that they're in the process of losing their patents due to a plethora of prior art. Their PR people won't, of course, mention this to educators, preferring to sow FUD so that they won't lose their de-facto monopoly over courseware at universities.

As our university is hurting for money and poorly endowed (ahem), I for one, am going to recommend Moodle when it comes to renewing our Blackboard license. Based on my experiences with Blackboard, Moodle looks to be more flexible.

Be Wary, Very Wary

[JumpingBull]

If you look at this offer as a game of chess, they are sacrificing a small market segment usually served with discounted prices. As a telling example, most sales to the education industry are very inexpensive compared to the prices real companies and people pay. The Microsoft office suite, as an example, is discounted to under 150USD, while the average person can pay much, much more.

The leverage this gives a company is incredible! Educators are always looking for stuff on the cheap, and the idea that a 150 software package translates into hundreds more of sales at the full price doesn't occur to them. So, they merrily specify it, and that generates a tremendous demand for later sales.

Similarly, by "protecting" open source in an educational context, they are able to copy features that would be built in by the community. Now, the market demands are already known, and just need to be branded and productized.

The real payoff for them is business; both as a part of infrastructure, and as a collaberation tool. Here the price for such tools can be quite high (about 10K USD).

Don't take the cheese, it's on a trap.

Re:It's hogwash

[FireFlie]

No, it's even worse. At the level the patents are actually describing, it seems that the best bad analogy would be Coca-Cola patenting "Brown liquids meant for consumption".