Next week, I will be sitting in a booth at Linux World pitching OpenACS to a massive collection of people wearing shirts like "chown users /world." There will also be many people who have been growing beards since before I was born. Many will be fluent in Klingon. *AND* Roberto will be there.
The only reason that we can have an OpenACS booth at Linux World, though, is because IDG is kind enough to offer free booths for Open Source projects. Otherwise, this would be a very expensive proposition. Even still, it's expensive for those who are attending as we have to pay for plane flights, the materials for the booth, time in SF, etc.
Regardless of the expense, I am happy to do this and have been delighted to host the socials. I think that all the other individuals, companies and organizations who have worked to bring attention to the OpenACS community feel the same way.
What excites me about the consortium, though, is that it will provide an opportunity for exposure orders of magnitude above what any member of the community can afford at this time. This will provide access to markets and customers that are simply impossible for the small companies and individual developers to access now. I am very grateful to Sloan for providing this opportunity.
In addition, I, as is David Geilhufe who posted earlier, am part of an effort to build a community of nonprofits to build OSS for the nonprofit community. People within that community have named the project dotNGO. I expect that the solidification of the governance process and the prestige that will be brought will give a major boost to the success of dotNGO.
As an OpenACS member and a OSS advocate, I do fear the possibility of a "corporatist" takeover of the community. But I have faith that Sloan recognizes the importance of the volunteer developers who are the lifeblood of the community. If they don't, I have even more faith that Don "Long-haired, owl-loving hippy" Baccus will remind them. Gently, of course.
What has excited me a great deal about dotLRN is the potential application of its work in places that I believe can most gain from OSS educational software - public schools and other resource-starved educational ventures. I am extremely excited to hear from Jon Griffin's post that some of the largest school districts in the country are aware of and eager to use dotLRN.
I really hope that Sloan and the consortium will include the voice of these organizations side-by-side with those of higher and corporate education. The ethic and practice of community participation and sharing of resources can exponentially help these orgs. Their needs and approaches are very different (I expect them to have vastly lower budgets and many more volunteer developers) but I hope they will have space on both the UAB and the TAB.
