I've been avoiding discussion of the patent issue. This is partly because I don't know enough about it, and partly because I am terribly annoyed by it. Yes, yes, I blog about stuff that annoys me all the time, but these are topics that I'm professionally engaged in, so the annoyance is not personally as troubling.
The basic idea is this: The US patent office has apparently gone nuts, or is being well paid off, and is accepting or approving patents on things that really should not be patented. The result is that a corporation with lots of money can patent something, and the next day sue their competitors into oblivian.
Yesterday morning I started the process of developing an on line course. But, the very first thing I did was to check to see if I would have the option of using Open Source software. Were that not the case, I would, frankly, simply not do it. Let other people develop the on line courses. Fortunately, here at The U, we have the option of using Moodle. Good.
But then, this morning, I encountered a rash of information about Blackboard (which, I believe, now owns Vista) ... these are all Content/Content Management System programs to use in classes, both regular and on line.
Blackboard has patented one or more things, such as the idea of having a single human play more than one roll in a CMS system. So Blackboard is the only company that can have the option of a teacher also being a student. This means that teachers can't see the view that students see when signing on to the class (by changing their "role") unless Blackboard gets paid something.
I am not prepared to analyze or even report clearly on this issue, so I'm going to provide you with a number of items that outline the situation, form Slashdot and other sources.
"Online learning provider Blackboard announced the other day that it has patented the Learning Management System (LMS). The very same day it went after Desire2Learn for Patent infringement in a truly Salt Lake City kinda way. A great many educators are a bit shook up by this, and are stockpiling prior art all over the place. "
[source]
"Blackboard, the dominant learning management system (LMS) maker, has won its initial suit against Desire2Learn. Blackboard gets $3.1 million and can demand that Desire2Learn stop US sales. (We discussed Blackboard when the patent was issued in 2006) This blog provides background on the suit. Blackboard has been granted a patent that covers a single person having multiple roles in an LMS: for example, a TA might be a student in one class and an instructor in another. You wouldn't think something this obvious could even be patented, but so far it's been a very effective weapon for Blackboard, badly hurting Desire2Learn and generating a huge amount of worry for the few remaining commercial LMSs that Blackboard has not already bought, and open source solutions such as Moodle (Blackboard's pledge not to attack such providers notwithstanding)."
[source]
After months of criticism that its patent policies had the potential to squelch important education projects, Blackboard on Thursday announced a "patent pledge" under which it vowed not to assert its patent rights to sue open source projects or home-grown software used by colleges and universities.
[source]
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.
[source]
I have an idea. I'm going to patent "ideas" and the process of having an idea, and any innovations, systems, or machines that arise from ideas or the idea of ideas.
An excellent preliminary step in my plan to Take Over the World!!!!
- Log in to post comments
Reminds me of when Starbucks copyrighted the phrase "Christmas Blend" and sued some monks.
Soooo...they patented the "role" model for viewing databases? When are they going to go after, say, Oracle? Or Microsoft? Or providers of non-educational CMS systems? Or providers of accounting systems?
This is just insane. How on earth did this get through the patent office? This is a basic concept in database management: different roles give you different views. It's the basis for most computer security systems in general.
This is just fucking insane.
There is no recourse for users, other than to push ahead with open source options and hope the backlash is enough for Blackboard to consider what they lose with patent wins in court. No one is impressed by lawsuit-driven business building.
I know of confirmed cases where Blackboard has intentionally denied support to universities, requiring them to hire their Global Services consulting arm or trying to drive a school to use their ASP (hosted) service. I've heard of at least one case where their Global Services consultants have taken money to work on problems that were known to be unfixable.
My current comical dispute with Blackboard involved them refusing to send me a Bb 8.0 installer unless I sat through a webinar and filled out a questionnaire. Given that I'm a sysadmin and not an instructional designer, trainer, or end-user, there's no rational reason to waste my time with such hoop-jumping, especially since a) we're already a customer and b) we pay nearly $40k/year for licensing and "support." I already put up with far far too much bullshit from Blackboard I don't need some Tier-1 support puke treating me like a 4th grader.
Blackboard has one mission - bleed universities dry by any means possible. Their software is overpriced, bloated, unreliable junk and I have no doubt they will do anything in their power, legal, moral, ethical or not - anything - to destroy competition and stay the only (rigged) game in town.
I long for the day someone sticks a hot hatpin in their collective corporate eye.
How did Moodle get in the door at the U of M? I understand that there are pedagogical differences between Bb and Moodle and I can see that being a factor, but I doubt it had much to do with the actual decision.
As staff, my only recourse is to foment dissent among the faculty and let them start a discussion to reevaluate our LMS (apparently tech staff may not initiate change here; that's reserved for faculty.)
Even getting Moodle supported as an alternative is a no-go here because "it's too hard to support a second LMS." Run them in a fair, flat-out comparison and I can't imagine we'd be supporting two LMSs for very long.