Blackboard friendly to Open Source only

Blackboard pledges not to pursue legal action against open source or home-grown LMS systems

http://sev.prnewswire.com/education/20070201/DCTH01001022007-1.html

Follow up article from IT Business about Blackboard’s announcement.

http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=42131

[Patent expert] Cameron said that the open source community might not be much of a threat to Blackboard's business interests. “When customers seem to be developing their own open-course software, the do-it-yourself thing doesn't always meet the needs of the customers, (leading Blackboard to say), ‘Well, you can still buy from us,'” said Cameron. “They're not going after the homegrown systems because they don't make much. (It's like) ‘We're not going to stop you if you're not making any money out of it.'”

Blackboard patented the LMS?

From back in August.

"Online learning provider Blackboard announced the other day that it has patented the Learning Management System (LMS)."

http://mfeldstein.com/index.php/weblog/permalink/blackboard_patents_the_lms

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/02/1217219

They've already pursued legal action against one company.

A petition against them:

http://www.boycottblackboard.org/