Blackboard versus Open Source

cNet News reports on the latest attack against Blackboard for suing Desire2Learn and also the error made by the USPTO in the granting of the patent.

"The Software Freedom Law Center said Thursday that it has asked the U.S. Patent Office to re-examine a patent awarded to education software company Blackboard. It claims that the patent is bogus and could undermine three open-source education software projects it represents--Sakai, Moodle and ATutor."

Blackboard's Matthew Small gives the standard rebuttal in the article. BTW, he spoke for a while on a webcast by the Ohio Learning Network TeachU series earlier this week and he didn't sound at all like the devil. Probably a decent enough guy just on the opposite side of the barbed-wire fence. More on that webcast later (maybe).

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