OpenSource

OS Software & Content

Eduforge

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Eduforge is “a virtual collaborative learning and exploratory environment designed for the sharing of ideas, research outcomes, open source educational software, and tools within a community of learners and researchers.” In the learning resources section is a case study about a hospital in Ireland that decided to shift to an open source IT infrastructure. This included e-learning, and the selected platform was Claroline. The case study provides figures (costs in Pounds) about the difference in total costs:

Claroline
Initial Cost: 1,000
Total Cost / 5 years : 4,000

Closed Source Solution (Name not disclosed)
Initial Cost: 35,000

Total Cost / 5 years : 175,000

Here is an interesting comment from the Beaumont Hospital IT manager:

If you have a product which costs $1 million, it may be appropriate to spend $500,000 on consulting. However if the product costs nothing then spending $500,000 somehow seems to be a more difficult decision to take.

Consulting services from qualified professionals were just as necessary as they would have been with closed source solutions. It’s not all free, but the Beaumont Hospital staff seem to be happy with their solution.

Do It Yourself (DIY)

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After to listening to an interview with Doc Searls, Jay Cross expands on the analogy of open source software as the material for DIY’ers of information technology.


The DIY crowd just want to build things. The closest analogy is to the construction industry. They share a common language ("builds,""tools,""builders"). Linux is the DIYers’ lumber, a raw material for virtually any job. Neither software construction nor building houses locks you in to a particular supplier. The housebuilder doesn’t say, "We’re building this house on a Weyerhauser platform…."
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The fact that Open Source code is free delegates decision-making lower in the organization. You don’t need a purchase order — or official approval — to use it.

As IT becomes ubiquitous, many of us just want to build things that will address our issues, and open source gives us the material to start with. No, open source is not perfect, but without it we couldn’t afford to test out many of our ideas. Open source lowers the barriers to innovation, because you have free building material, and only have to supply the labour.

Sakai 1.0 to be Released Today

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The Sakai Project will be releasing the first version of its open source learning management system today:

The University of Michigan, Indiana University, MIT, Stanford, and the uPortal consortium are joining forces to integrate and synchronize their considerable educational software into a pre-integrated collection of open source tools. This will yield three big wins for sustainable economics and innovation in higher education:


* A framework that builds on the recently ratified JSR 168 portlet standard and the OKI open service interface definitions to create a services-based, enterprise portal for tool delivery

* A re-factored set of educational software tools that blends the best of features from the participants?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ disparate software (e.g., course management systems, assessment tools, workflow, etc.)

* A synchronization of the institutional clocks of these schools in developing, adopting and using a common set of open source software.

It will be interesting to see if this changes the balance in the higher education marketplace.

Update: More information and related links are available at ICTlogy.

Open Source and Small Businesses

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In a recent article in the Small Business Survival Guide, Raymond Keating states that the open source software development model will lead to economic stagnation.

The underlying question that open-source software brings to the fore is: do we want to go back to those dark days before intellectual property rights were clearly defined and protected? If one prefers robust entrepreneurship, invention, innovation, growth and job creation in the economy, then the only choice is to protect intellectual property rights. The open-source theory only opens society to stagnation.

There are better economic minds than mine that could refute his argument, so let me focus on my own case. As a very small business, I use Open Office as my desktop suite. It is free, stable and has features like "export as PDF", that the major vendor will not provide me. I can always purchase "Open Office for Dummies" should I need help, but haven’t required it yet. This zero cost option is money in the bank for me, and good for my business.

This website is built using an open source CMS. It is hosted by another local, small business. Open source gives me a powerful tool, at a low cost, that I could not afford otherwise. It also provides revenue to the hosting company. I am using open source applications for some of my client projects as well. These applications, like Mambo or Tikiwiki, allow me to implement pilot projects at about 25% of the cost of projects using proprietary enterprise software. My clients can test out new methodologies without software license fees; lowering the financial risk of innovation. Using open source software is a competitive advantage, and in some cases is the critical factor in getting a contract.

The bottom line – without open source software, it would be difficult to compete. Open source is very good for my small business.

Via Small Business Trends.

Great Value from NRC’s e-Learning Group

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Seb Paquet, who works at the National Research Council’s e-learning group, with Stephen Downes and others, has been asked to quantify his impact on the research community. Personally, I see the connections that Seb and Stephen make on a daily basis. They are two critical nodes in the research dialogue of the e-learning community of practice.

Seb has helped me get started as a blogger and connected me to the work of some brilliant researchers, such as Lilia Efimova. Seb’s contacts helped to connect the open source bloggers at the last Moncton Cybersocial. Without Seb, Steve Mallet would not have showed up. As a result of the connections made at this event, a number of us are already discussing new business relationships. Seb’s published research informs my own research and practice, as many of my clients are interested in this "blogging thing". Seb’s perspective of the global community is a real inspiration for those of us in underpopulated, somewhat rural, New Brunswick. More recently Seb created the Atlantic Canada Bloggers wiki, a great map of who is blogging – the link is shown on my External Links [no longer available].

Stephen’s OLDaily is a great source of information, and I’m not sure how he finds the time to do it. His website is a treasure trove of information, insight, and sometimes contention (a good thing). Stephen’s Edu_RSS and Ed Radio are two small innovations that he developed in response to requests from the community. Stephen is someone who seems to be constantly giving back to the community.

I definitely feel that I am getting great value for my tax dollar from Seb, Stephen, Rod and the rest of the staff at the NRC.

Open Source Distribution

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I’m not for or against open source or proprietary software. I’m a pragmatist looking for the best all-round solution for my clients. Because of this mindset, I have been drawn to the open source model. I also prefer long-term solutions that address systemic needs, not quick fixes. Via Steve, I came across this post on the business model for open source distribution. This one really makes sense, and whether you are developing software, buying software or using software, you should read the entire article.

Copyright and patent are weighty protections, but they put the vendor in an adversarial relationship with the customer. Such traditional intellectual property tools hurt users as much (or more) than competitors. Open source allows me to lay waste to my competitors’ profit margins while simultaneously blessing my customers with increased IT flexibility and a more finely tailored approach to solving their business problems.

This is the kind of distribution model that I believe can make major inroads into the e-learning marketspace.

WebCT & Blackboard vs Moodle

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In Considering the Alternative, Matt Jadud makes a strong case for the use of open source learning management systems. Even when the institution has made an investment in proprietary technology (in this case WebCT) there are limitations to what you can do. While trying to integrate the existing WebCT platform with a Java application, Jadud found that the only viable options were to upgrade to WebCT Vista, for an additional >$65,000 investment, or leave the platform altogether. His research found that Moodle had all of the features and support of WebCT and Blackboard, for a tiny fraction of the cost.

Jadud concludes:

We believe there are few benefits to the community at large by investing in closed or proprietary solutions, especially when viable, open solutions exist. A course management solution like Moodle would have eliminated any question of whether our investment of integration effort would be possible (as we could easily use Moodle’s extensibility to our advantage) and valuable (as we would leverage one freely available educational product against another).

Why open source & standards are critical to our economic future

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Mark Federman once again shows the unintended consequences of extending copyright laws, by using McLuhan’s Laws of Media. As car manufacturers continue to use proprietary code for their chips, only brand-name mechanics will be able to work on your car, and thus spell the end of independent garages.

The U.S. Congress is considering specific legislation that would allow the corner garage to stay in business. So why should our cars be any different than our printers, our DVD players, our computers, and our future information-sucking gadgetry?

What kind of world do you want to live in?