[Technical] WebCT and Blackboard eLearning systems to merge

[Con Zymaris]

On Thu, Oct 13, 2005 at 10:24:47AM +1000, Clark, Ian C wrote:
> > 
> > What might this mean for Moodle? 
> > http://www.moodle.org/
> 
> I wouldn't have thought a lot, Donna ... Moodle (great work, Aussie in
> origin) is volunteer-driven and unlike commercial software only needs to
> respond to the wishes of users, not shareholders. 
> 
> Lack of continuing interest by a developer or personality clashes
> between developers can cause some grief in open source projects - the
> Aussie Mambo content management portal seems to have suffered from this
> of late ...

Keep in mind that the key difference with open source software is that
_if_ there exists a level of interest in maintaining and growing a product
like Mambo or Moodle, then it can and most likely will be maintained and
development will continue. Mambo's developers had hassles with the sponsor
(Miro, also an Australian firm!) and have since spawned Joomla
(http://www.joomla.org/).

You can't 'save' proprietary software in a similar way - proprietary 
software licences will not allow you to do so.

-- 
___________________________________________________________________________
Con Zymaris <conz at cyber.com.au> Level 4, 10 Queen St, Melbourne, Australia 
Cybersource: Australia's Leading Linux and Open Source Solutions Company 
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