All this enthusiasm is really great, but...
I'm going to be very frank, and perhaps break a number of taboos. I see two problems and two solutions. The problems are chaotic competition and absent financial resources. The solutions are organized complementation and diversification of money investments. The ideas and the human resources to implement the ideas into products have always been the core essence of this community, so that shouldn't have to be a cause for major excitement by now. If it is, that's because we (dotLRN?) have lost touch with the original spirit of the community lately.
Complementation, that's the keyword. We can't compete with each other by working on the same products. SCORM itself is a vast field, with lots of separate but interrelated parts. As Michael perceives it, there are three major areas that we're all working on: SCORM, Simple Sequencing, and OKI. SCORM is vast, SS and perhaps OKI aren't. These different areas are all connected to each other and we have to synchronize our works so that the different pieces fit together, but not work together on a one-piece puzzle. The only piece we (Polyxena) have ever laid claim on doing is the actual simple sequencing engine, a well-defined piece of functionality. If we could just get a confirmation that this is left to us, we'll be happy to leave the remaining 99.9% of SCORM work to others and to cooperate in fitting our piece together with the other pieces of the puzzle. Had this confirmation come when we asked for it, the sequencing engine might have existed today.
Ernie's perception that the proposal for Curriculum has been around for a while and that the real implementation has still not begun is very telling of the other fundamental problem: the lacking/lagging finances. Diversification (of investments and risks) has always been a sound economic advise. And yet it seems that only very major projects, like the creation of dotLRN or the implementation of SCORM, receives finances, while smaller and less risky ones, like creating modular pieces of functionality that would make dotLRN more useful, don't. Wouldn't it be prudent to split large projects into smaller pieces, that is, handing out money to smaller units of developers whose responsibility for the product is much clearer, rather than pumping in a large sum in a diffuse all encompassing project. There should be a way for small projects to seek sponsoring and get it (if deserved) in a much shorter time than what is now the case. It's not possible for individual developers (even if they formally are companies) to go on empowering dotLRN at their own expense. And dotLRN won't survive if its developers don't survive.
(I'm truly sorry, Talli.)
