Teknoids - blackboard

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 -0600

n/a

BlackBoard Pledge Redux - Can't Buy a Clue

Wed, 7 Feb 2007 02:59:06 -0600

News of BlackBoard’s pledge is still pinballing around the blogpsphere. I subscribe to a stored search for the term ‘blackboard patent’ and it retrieves dozens of blog posts every day since they made the Pledge. The great majority of these posts have not been positive or grateful to BlackBoard.

I have really been trying to get my head around this whole quagmire that BlackBoard is in. Clearly they did not expect the storm of response that they got from the patent. Perhaps they were hoping for a quick settlement with Desire2Learn? If not, then Plan B surely has to be making them re-think this strategy.

On the plus side, they have a patent. It took them 6 years and probably a hundred thousand dollars in legal costs, but they got it.

On the minus side, they have a whole bunch of people - many of them their customers - real upset with them.

BlackBoard Pledges Not to Assert Patents Against Open Source LMSes

Thu, 1 Feb 2007 02:01:13 -0600

Read all about here.

I'm still digesting, but a couple of things pop out.

Last week, after the news that the USPTO had agreed to re-examine the '138 patent, the number of blogs and news sources that ran the story was huge and noisy.

They want to own the commercial CMS market. I haven't read the other patent applications that they list, but it seems like it would be hard to be a commercial LMS vendor and not deal with Bb on their terms.

They miss the point about "Free" in Free Software. It's not the price, it's the freedom to do what you want.

EDUCAUSE's and Sakai Foundations endorsement of this action did not exactly say "All is forgiven" and I am a little disheartened with the response by these two organizations. Updated: BlackBoard's selective quoting from the Sakai/EDUCAUSE response was misleading ...