We are aware of Project Sakai.
I will highlight quickly some of the differences. A clear statement of the relationship needs to be part of the marketing material, which we need to solidify soon as we release v2.0.
- Existence. As St. Thomas might say, .LRN has the virtue of existence. Sakai will take at least 1-2 years to develop. I am sure it will be successful in the long run because there will be lots of resources behind it. The incorporation of uPortal, which is a solid product, gives it a big advantage. It will be attractive also because of Java, which is more mainstream.
- Open Source. Sakai will also be open source. But as we all know there's open source and open source. The initial development model for Sakai will not be open source as we understand it. For practical reasons it will be driven entirely by 4 - 5 educational institutions and closed to the world. Sakai will be developed, at least initially, to meet the needs of large universities, mostly in the U.S. .LRN is already a world-wide phenomenon and "open" all the way in terms of inviting participation.
- Course vs Community-Centric Because of its origins in OpenACS (community system), .LRN is community-centric software and not course-centric. This is one of the pricipal reasons why we chose to go with OpenACS as the foundation. This also means that .LRN is being used and will be used outside the "course paradigm". A course is just one type of community.
- Enterprise Integration This is one of the principal reasons why MIT and others are doing Sakai. This is also one of the principal disadvantages currently of .LRN. How does one integrate .LRN for example with student systems?
There's more. Overall, competition is healthy and I am glad to see other alternatives emerging in the open source space. It should spur us to do even better.
