One of the fears seems to be that non-techies will be telling what developers what to do. Anyone who thinks that opensource developers can be *made* to do something is out of their minds. Opensource communities are not unlike academia in this respect: you also can't tell faculty what to do. If you try, especially at a place like MIT, you will be lucky if you last more than a week.
What is the purpose of the Executive Board and how can it benefit developers? Hackers want to code. Great hackers write beautiful code and want to solve interesting technical problems. Most developers don't have this luxury. I hope that the Executive Board will develop a sound businesss plan for dotLRN and generate the resources to execute it successfully. Obtaining funding to grow the dotLRN community is one of the key priorities. If we are successful, a year from now we might be able to say to some of you: "Hey, we need this problem solved. Here is some funding. Go at it." Successful product development requires an infusion of funding for research and development. Obtaining funding for R&D is just one of the goals for the EB.
