grrr is is all about the money after all

[woodsmoke]

I won't get into why I did the search, aside to say that since the college was cancelled today the Final Exam schedules are bolluxed.

And one of the unexpected problems that the professors have to deal with in communicating with the students is that "copy and paste" is not supported by anything but the the absolute latest IE ... even ctrl+c etc do not work. Basically some kind of "window" that says "email selected users" appears but then disappears before the mouse can hover it.

So, I thought I'd look up Sakai and Moodle to promote them again to the college.

And what to my very irritated eyes did appear.

Blackboard, like Microsith, has yet again, just "bought out" a competitor.

It is all about the money even for those who shout to the heavens that "open source" and "the Bazaar" are the holy grails.

http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcamp...r-moodle/35837

So this means that any which way we will just have to put up with this cra##ola from now on.

woodveryirritatedsmoke

[GreyGeek]

Blackborg can't buy an open source product, only the services and support. Moodle Partners are just that… partners. They don’t own the product, they provide service and support around the product, but you own it.

Others offer Moodle support:
http://www.remote-learner.net/

or you could be self-supporting:
http://www.williamstites.net/2011/04...ow-big-is-big/

Or, you could move to another Open Source product that is equal or better:
http://www.instructure.com/

And then there is always FORK!

[woodsmoke]

I know that they can't "buy open source" and that they bought the "support" but people will take the path of least resistance, which means we will be stuck with unsupported "open source" or cra##y closed source.

And the "open source" people took the money!

Even "the inventor" ....was "ok with it"....means he is going to get paid also, probably as a consultant...

BB will "support it" for a while and then both apps will quietly just disappear.

it is always about the money!

woodsmoke

[woodsmoke]

LOL this ice storm may, notice the emphasis on "may" have created a very small mini-perfect storm, pun intended, in the affected colleges.

The Dean of the college has sent out three e-mail "blasts" to the profs about how they need to get off their dead rear ends and start interacting with the students.

There are multiple tweets on the colleges FB page from students who say that their profs have not contacted them to do anything about the finals.

Sooooo shrinking violet that I am, I e-mailed the Dean about the problems with copy and paste and "e-mail selected users" not working and that the "fix" the "ctrl-codes" don't work and that the bug(s) have been known for over a year, and discussed at many colleges.

I also indicated the rather anamolous situatiion of Firefox working to "e-mail selected users" on a Vista machine.

He then.. forwarded my e-mail to the "help desk" and asked if something could be done, and then they kicked it to IT.

Welll there is nothing that any of these people can do.

Except to very bruskly say "get on with the program" and buy, at your expense, the latest MS offerings.

I suggested in another e-mail that since BB had bought Sakai and Moogle "producers/purveyors" that surely the consortium of junior colleges in the state could come up with enough scratch to pay a couple of top programmers to take the open source code and produce a working Sakai or Moodle that expressly would work with Firefox and whatever Apple's latest fast running animal is.

It would be a simple and cost effective fix.

The problem, of course is the "kickbacks" under the table from Microsith to use Microsith stuff and also...............

Maintaining an ONGOING support staff of people for Moodle and Sakai.

There have to be MANY dozens of colleges/universities/jr colleges that are in this fix and thousands of instructors, most of which probably use a Mac and are out of luck except to do a manual, student by student interaction.

I'm certainly HOPING for a perfect mini-ice storm!

woodsmoke