The NOSE

Chandler: What Went Wrong?

Announced with great fanfare in 2002 as the "Microsoft Exchange killer", Chandler promised to a "revolutionary" open source personal information manager.

Chandler's brainchild Mitch Kapor provided an initial $5 million. The Mellon Foundation got on the bandwagon by providing $1.6 Million and a consortium of 25 Universities comprising the "Common Solutions Group" threw in another $1.25 Million.

Many moons and millions later we have at best a "pretty buggy and incomplete calendar application that's not very impressive compared to the 58 me-too Web 2.0 calendars that came out last year, each of which was developed by two college kids in their spare time, one of whom really just drew mascots....Chandler doesn't even have a mascot." (Joel Spolsky, Joel on Software).

What went wrong?

Joel Spolsky takes a look at Chandler in his review of Scott Rosenberg's Dreaming in Code. A MUST READ (Spolsky's blog posting and Rosenberg's book) for understanding the pitfalls in software development, project management, and possibly life itself.

USPTO Orders Re-examination of Blackboard Patent

In a big blow to Blackboard Inc, the U S Patent and Trade Office today ordered a re-examination of Blackboard's e-learning patent. While reexamination does not mean invalidation of the patent, this is a welcome step. Not quite the beginning of the end, but possibly the end of the beginning.

The request for ex parte reexamination was filed by the Software Freedom Law Center on behalf of the Sakai, ATutor, and Moodle open source projects.

Open Culture

How can I find worthwhile "open content" out on the web?

You can google or go to the open culture blog, which "sifts through all the media, highlight the good and jettison the bad, and centralize it in one place. Trust us, you'll find engaging content here that will keep you learning and sharp. And you will find it much more efficiently than if you spend your time searching with Google, Yahoo or iTunes." Hear. Hear.

Open Culture's lead editor is Dan Colman,  Associate Dean & Director of Stanford's Continuing Studies Program. 

 

Tipping Point for Open Content?

I suck at languages. I can either blame it on my parents or make another go of it by mastering at least one FL before I croak. I am also cheap, lazy, and un-motivated. So, what to do?

I think this year we will reach the tipping point for open content in educational materials.

MIT's Open Courseware started the movement. UC Berkeley recently gave the movement a big boost by making available full video lectures for more than 50 courses. But we are also beginning to see significant contributions to open content by creative individuals.

On the top ten list of iTunes podcast is a delightful series called "Coffee Break Spanish" by two Scots named Mark and Kara. They are churning out a series of great podcast lessons and have also built a marvelous community web site around their content.

Thanks to Mark and Kara this will be the year I will finally become proficient in Spanish.

Second Life Goes Open Source ...Sort Of

I have received many emails on Second Life's recent open source announcement. Stephen O'Grady's analysis is on mark and I highly recommend it.

On the education front we can expect continued experimentation in Second Life, including by faculty at my institution. Open sourcing the viewer alone neither helps nor hinders that effort.

What counts in the long run is the ""server" platform, which remains closed. Here I agree with O'Grady:

"But all that said, I’m instinctively mistrustful of closed environments; they’ve been tried before on the web, and most if not all have failed when faced with open competition. That does not appear to exist at the present time, so Second Life has yet to face a real threat of this nature, but projects can evolve. Like David, [3] I’m quite reluctant to invest significant time, money or both on either a personal or commercial level in a world that is inherently closed in nature - and could become more so depending on the financial fortunes of the organization backing it. I can’t forgo it entirely, because several of our customers are beginning to conduct briefings in the virtual world, but I’m definitely a skeptic (and can’t see myself spending money on SL clothes when I won’t do so in the real world ."

We will be taking a serious look at Open Croquet and my hope is that open environments for building virtual worlds will now begin to pick up steam.