Fortnightly Mailing

New Scientist interview with Jimmy Wales

Well written, interesting interview by Paul Marks with Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia. Extract relating to WikiaSearch (see also this post from January):

Why are you developing a search engine?

Transparency is what I'm really after, the idea that we can go in and see exactly how web pages are being ranked. We need to have a public debate about it. We just don't know if there is any dishonesty or strange incentives in today's algorithms that rank searches. Since news of this venture broke (see search.wikia.com) we have been contacted by more than one second-tier company that develops search engines. They recognise that acting individually they are going to have a hard time catching up with Google, because Google has so much money and so many great people.

What's your plan for search?

It's too early for specifics, but one thing that has worked is an alliance in which people contribute to a free software project. We saw this succeed with Apache, the open-source webserver. Apache was a tiny group of volunteers, yet the vast majority of its code has come from companies who paid people to work on it. It's essentially an industrial consortium that has been able to fend off Microsoft's closed-source webserver. So it makes sense for second-tier search companies who are falling behind Google to contribute to a free search software project that will make us equal to Google in terms of search quality.

Blackboard issues "Patent Pledge"

Updated 3/2/2007

On 1 February 2007 Blackboard Inc. issued a Patent Pledge in which it commits not to assert US Patent Number 6,988,138 and "many other" pending patent applications against the development, use or distribution of Open Source software or home-grown course management systems anywhere in the world, "to the extent that such systems are not bundled with proprietary software". As part of the pledge, Blackboard "promises never to pursue patent actions against anyone using such systems including professors contributing to open source projects, open source initiatives, commercially developed open source add-on applications to proprietary products and vendors hosting and supporting open source applications". Blackboard also extends the pledge to a number of specific Open Source initiatives including Sakai, Moodle, ATutor, Elgg and Boddington.

Blackboard's media release, and its letter to the community contain supportive statements from Educause, Sakai, and the Australasian Council on Open and Distance Education, as well as from a number of individual institutions. Sakai and Educause today issue their own joint statement [44 kB PDF], distancing themselves somewhat from Blackboard. Extract:

"...... Sakai Foundation and EDUCAUSE find it difficult to give the wholehearted endorsement we had hoped might be possible. Some of Sakai's commercial partners and valued members of the open source community will not be protected under this pledge. Furthermore, EDUCAUSE and Sakai worked to gain a pledge that Blackboard would never take legal action for infringement against a college or university using another competing product. While Blackboard ultimately agrees that such actions are not in its best interest from a customer relations viewpoint, it could not agree for reasons related to its existing legal case. Our organizations will remain vigilant on this point as protecting our member institutions is of top priority."

"While this pledge offers a formalization of Blackboard's past claims about the intent of its patents, it does not speak to the quality or validity of the patents themselves. Sakai and EDUCAUSE maintain the position that Blackboard’s U.S. patent number 6,988,138 is overly broad, and that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) erred in granting it to Blackboard. Furthermore, we believe that this conclusion will ultimately be decided by the re-examination of this patent through the USPTO and in the current litigation."

Certainly, the pledge represents a distinct and most definitely welcome change of course by Blackboard - though it is something that Blackboard's Chief Legal Officer Matt Small had more than hinted that the company was considering when he spoke at the Sakai conference in November 2006 [190 kB PDF].  But to my mind the pledge has the potential, firstly to leave Desire2Learn (and others) out in the cold, and secondly to draw attention away from the issues of i) software patents in general, and ii)  patents based on "prior art" developed collaboratively and openly by people based all over the world in a diverse range of public and private sector organisations. My heart is still with Educause's 26 October 2006 call that Blackboard should "disclaim the rights established under your recently-awarded patent, placing the patent in the public domain and withdrawing the claim of infringement against Desire2Learn".  3/2/2007 update. In relation to "prior art", Desire2Learn adopts quite a confident tone  in its recently released 26/1/2007 "Preliminary Invailidity Contentions" (a document submitted to the East Texas Patent Court), which is available as a 360 k B PDF from the Desire2Learn web site.

Note. Other posts about the Blackboard patent:

• 1 February 2007 - Blackboard issues "Patent Pledge";
• 25 January 2007 - United States Patent & Trademark Office orders re-examination of Blackboard Patent;
• 9 December 2006 - Two contrasting views about software patents. A debate between Eben Moglen and Blackboard's Matt Small;
• 2 December 2006 - Blackboard: two separate re-examination requests to the US Patent and Trade Mark Office; and an application to the Court from Desire2Learn for a stay in proceedings;
• 27 October 2006 - EDUCAUSE on Blackboard: "patenting a community creation is anathema to our culture";
• 16 October 2006 -  John Mayer interviews various lawyers with patent knowhow;
• 10 September 2006 - The new "post-patent" environment for e-learning: a perspective. Guest contribution by Jim Farmer;
• 9 September 2006 - Blackboard's work for IMS;
• 8 August 2006 - Did the US Department of Justice know about the patent when it cleared Blackboard's acquisition of Web CT?;
• 26 July 2006 - Blackboard's US Patent 6988138.