Sakai Seems to Think It's Over

In the immortal words of Bluto: "Over? Did you say 'over'? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!" (Germans? Forget it, he's rolling.) "And it ain't over now." For some reason those words come to mind while reading a recent email that I received.

The Sakai Project made an announcement last week that makes it sound like they think the Blackboard patent flap is over. Here are a few quotes from that:

"This rejection of the patent is good news for the education community and supports what we have believed all along--that the patent in question should never have been issued in the first place."

"Because the SFLC request was accepted essentially without modification, their work on the re-examination is essentially complete and this concludes the current relationship between the SFLC and Moodle/ATutor/Sakai."

"We believe the USPTO non-final ruling provides a basis to put this patent matter behind us and resume productive work without distraction. We urge all involved to make that so."

Maybe Sakai thinks they are finished with this thing, but I'm pretty sure that D2L, SFLC, Blackboard, and all the other players are expecting it to continue on for quite some time. It could very well be that their input from this point forward will be minimal or less. However, their press announcement makes it sound like the whole thing is over. Clearly, that is not the case.

Comments

Sneezy said…
Would you say Sakai's exodus is more like the infamous, "Mission Accomplished" speech? Less of a "it is over" than a "we don't want to play anymore".
April 08, 2008 8:48 AM
Anonymous said…
Maybe we left the wrong impression. We don't think it is over, not at all. We're not (that) naive. And we're certainly not "exiting"--we will continue to speak for openness in education and against what we feel to be inappropriate use of patents.

The point is simply that the SFLC was closely associated with Sakai. We still remain friendly and support their overall mission. But the specific work around the re-examination is now complete and we want to ensure that everyone understands the activities of the organization are separate. That's all. Sorry if that created confusion.

BTW, feel free to send me an email if you have questions about what are intentions are. I'm happy to answer as best I can.
April 08, 2008 10:31 AM
Anonymous said…
Thank you very much. This was a great help.
July 13, 2008 6:51 AM
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