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/
Patent Re-examination
The patent re-examination has been filed and things are starting to happen. Here are some URLs:
THE SFLC Release
The Sakai FAQ
Educause Letter to BlackBoard (Scroll to the bottom)
Status Update – Album Version
This is a bit of expansion of my previous status update. I need to expand my “Educause revelation” a bit.
Educause is a nifty way to measure how far Sakai has come because it is an annual event and one where we give talks, hold meetings, etc. So I take the occasion of Educause to reflect on things to make sure that I remain grounded in what we are doing and why we are all here.
Wither a Community Roadmap
I answered a Brian Jorgensen e-Mail proposing a Community Roadmap – he also has a Blog entry about it.
http://www.moosetrout.com/braindrain/sakai-community-roadmap
This is my answer. While I liked the basic idea – I very consistently am negative when something smacks of a “community driven management layer” – where some group appoints themselves to “be in charge” and drive all of Sakai to be “deterministic” as if we were a set of non-volunteer developers.
Sakai is a federation and we need to accept that – it is simply reality – all the fantasy of us as a company is not there (until we get to 2-3 million of revenue annually).
Once we have 2-3 million in revenue, then we will become a non-profit development company where the paying community has *every* right to have all kinds of checks, balances, determinism, and detailed reports.
But then, folks should look deeply into whether they want the community to *do* the work or delegate the work to a single organization (The Sakai Foundation).
To operate as a real federation where there is true respect for each organization that is in the federation – we must accept that each of those organizations (and individuals) will self-determine to some degree.
Freedom has a price – it is taking responsibility for ones *own* actions and respect for the actions of others.
Foundation Staffing Levels
In preparation for Atlanta, I am trying to characterize the level of effort that it takes to run Sakai right now and who was doing the work to make “Sakai happen”. A lot of these people work pretty quietly so I want to recognize their contributions.
It totals over 15 FTE this point, 3/4 of which is volunteer and 1/4 of which is paid.
I will revise this list and improve it so this is best thought of as a draft.
If I have missed something – please let me know. If you are an institution with a FTE commitment working on the Sakai Core, a Sakai Tool, or Sakai QA – please drop me a short describing the work and give me %FTE in a note so I can add these other contributions to my lists. Do not include the staff it takes to keep Sakai running at your institution – only those who are working on Sakai itself.
These percentages go up and down – I tried to estimate the contribution levels over the past year. Sorry if I over or underestimate these contributions – feel free to correct me.
Status Update
A status update is way overdue – perhaps after this week I can make a longer status update. But here is a short one.
Riding the Michigan Flyer
There is a new bus service from Lansing, MI to Detroit Metro Airport called Michigan Flyer (http://www.michiganflyer.com/). I am writing the Blog entry from the bus. It has wireless networking and costs $25.00 each way. This Blog entry details the trip. It reminds me of the bus from Oxford, UK to Heathrow (http://www.oxfordbus.co.uk/airline1.html).
First lesson – make reservations a day in advance. It has a human in the loop. But in a pinch you can pay the driver $25.00 cash and just hop on the bus. I made my reservations at the last minute and had to make a 4:30 AM phone call – everything worked out.
Report from Kuali Days
I attended the Kuali Days event (www.kuali.org) in Tucson, AZ this week. The event was hosted by the University of Arizona and it was a wonderful meeting location. The hotel is carved out of a mountain covered in Sagauro cactus. The view from the hotel onto the Tucson valley.
http://www.dr-chuck.com/images/2006/11/index.php?img=14-11-06_110743_01.jpg
Sweet Airports with Free Wifi
Aargh – lost track of time and missed my flight from Phoenix to San Fanncisco – thankfully there is a flight at 10:30 PM through Las Vegas that goes to SFO.
Phoenix Has free Wifi
Las Vegas has Free Wifi
Cool trip. Wated a few hours missing a flight but was a good voyage to discover free WiFi spots!!
Football Scenario – OSU and UM
This is what I think would be really cool. This weekend UM wins over OSU but it is a close game and many feel that OSU was the better team.
At some level the only logical ranking the following week would be
UM #1 and OSU #2
Then UM and OSU would meet *again* for the national championship!
This would make up for the times that the big 10 does not make the national championship because other conferences are easier.