Update: Blackboard Clarifies Patent Pledge

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Update: Blackboard Clarifies Patent Pledge

2/1/2007

By David Nagel

But, more to the point, he also defined the circumstances in which bundling would be considered unacceptable, as well as the loopholes for developers, both commercial and open-source: "The way we mean 'bundled' is if a software company is taking its proprietary code and open source and putting those together and delivering them together, either via download or on a disc or what have you, or if their proprietary software doesn't work without the open-source piece, that would be 'bundled.' However, schools can take their proprietary applications and their open-source applications, and they can mix and match as they please, and they can put them all together. Likewise, a proprietary company can sell the non-infringing proprietary product and then separately [take] an otherwise infringing open-source product and provide them separately, and the schools can put them together. The schools can even hire that company to come on campus and put them together. So there's a lot of flexibility. And I think this strikes the right balance between allowing Blackboard to protect the investments that it makes in its technology, while ensuring that it does not have a chilling effect on the community."

Development of the pledge
What was not apparent earlier today on the patent pledge was that, according to Small, Blackboard did, in fact, work with Sakai and EDUCAUSE on the wording. There was clearly no absolute consensus on the final wording of the pledge, but the organizations did work together on it.

"I would not view this pledge as Blackboard versus Sakai and EDUCAUSE," Small told us. "The three organizations worked together in a collaborative manner to come out with the pledge. It's Blackboard's pledge, and it's a better document because we worked with those organizations...."

So why the caveats in the Sakai/EDUCAUSE joint statement? Small said, "... Those organizations have a very diverse, large membership. The opinions on the Blackboard patent in general vary. And it was important for them that they include the appropriate caveats covering the range of opinion of their organizations so as not to offend their members, which is why they gave a joint statement of qualified support."

He continued, "The fact that we were able to work through a policy and get to a point where those two entities, given prior statements that they made, felt comfortable giving a statement of qualified support, I think is quite wonderful for the industry. And it's just the very first step in moving forward to focus on the most important things, which are those tenets core to the e-learning community of teaching, learning, collaboration, the free exchange of ideas. And our pledge goes a long way to put that in writing to give people the assurance that they need not worry about our patent portfolio."

When asked whether it was pressure from the open-source or education communities that led to the release of this pledge, Small said that external pressure was not a fact.