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

First link is borked

[PornMaster]

The first link goes to a Scoble blog entry about completely different things...

Re:First link is borked

[hahiss]

Newsforge has had a few links this morning; here's a decent one:

http://news.com.com/2100-7344_3-6155469.html

The gist of the situation is that Blackboard is making a pledge, but (i) apparently the constraints of the pledge are incompatible with the GPL (so it does GPL'd projects little good) and (ii) they're reserving the right to revoke the "license" from anyone that sues Blackboard for patent infringement.

Of course, the real question here is whether they have a legitimate patent in the first place; if they don't, then the issues above go away.

[Note: I'm not a legal expert, I'm not privvy to the relevant docs, and I've not been consulted by any parties involved. As a result, I'm not saying that the allegations are correct; I'm just telling the author of the parent post what has been alleged.]

"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?

Re:"not evil" for now, until aquired/sold

[squiggleslash]

There's a third option, which is to create a non-revokable Class License applying to software licensed under open source licenses. That way, should the company be bought, anyone using the technology covered by the license under an open source environment will remain protected.

Personally though I'd rather just see the patent revoked. Supposedly there's another attempt brewing to get SCOTUS to look at software patents.

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.

Good Old Blackboard

[Jordan Catalano]

See an insecurity in their systems? They'll sue you to shut you up about it.

http://web.archive.org/web/20050404014123/se2600.o rg/acidus/campuswide/index.html

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.

A big suprise

[ManUMan]

I am not sure what will happen with the Blackboard patent (if it will hold up, etc.), but I see this as an attempt for

Blackboard to try to keep some face. The Blackboard product heavily utilizes "building blocks" (assuming you have the enterprise version), many of which are open source. If Blackboard is benefiting from open source, attacking open source products may kill or slow down the inovation that comes from the building blocks...

Additionally, I think this is an attempt to try to placate those who are shouting prior art and want to go after the patent and invalidate it... The reasoning might go like, "If they aren't going after sakai or moodle, i don't really care if they have the patent." That is how I see the real purpose of this move... It seems fairly shrewd. Hopefuly higher ed will continue to go after them and educause will keep the pressure up. BTW, there is a joint statement from educause and sakai (PDF) on educause's website. (Here is the statement on sakai's page.)

--JS