There is a interesting discussion on Michael Feldstein’s Blog about thew events at the Sakai Meeting last week. It is a lot of fun with all of the major players commenting. I find it an interesting read and added my own bit to the conversation replicated below.
Michael’s Blog: http://mfeldstein.com/index.php/weblog/comments/454/

These past two weeks have seen a great deal of dialog about these issues – including this blog entry and its comments. I like to take a broad and long-term view of these things and try to think how we will look back at some point in the future at the events of the past weeks rather than responding to the passion of the moment.
I think that when the history of these past few weeks is written – the overriding thing that we will remember is *not* that voices were raised or there was some rhetoric or which metaphors were used and whether or not and to what extent some folks found it shocking or offensive….
Instead, I think that in the fullness of time, we will realize that this was mostly about transparency and how that transparency of the past week ultimately will have moved the discussions forward in a positive direction.
Conversations have been going on and there has been conflict and discussion simmering under the surface since June when this all started. I have been part of many small discussions and frankly I am happy that these discussions are happening in a more public way now. A critical element to allow these discussions to move into the public space (meetings, blogs, etc) was the filing of the re-exam at the USPTO. Now that the filing has happened – the open discussion has started.
Part of the key to transparency is that it is *transparent* – we get to see what is going on – warts and all. Like many conflicts – this is not simple, nor cut and dried – there are rough edges here and there – we have to accept that. We should not rail against the rough edges – we should be happy that we are finally all talking about these things in a way that we can all watch as it happens.
I have been involved in lots of discussions over the past six months and really have a lot of respect for everyone involved including the Sakai Board, SFLC, Martin Dougiamas, Greg Gay, Desire2Learn, and Blackboard. What we are doing here is not easy – there is no *book* that tells us the answers – we are working through the issues together even though on the surface it seems like we are at odds. Even with the public rhetoric of the past week, the discussions are still continuing and I am hopeful that a solution may yet emerge.
So I encourage folks to take a somewhat longer view here and appreciate the level of maturity that this field has reached which makes this kind of discussion possible.
Transparency is our right to see what is going on – that is a basic right and a value of our communities – transparency does not guarantee that you will always like what you see.