Sept. 1, 2006

Changing the Report, After the Vote

Except for David Ward, president of the American Council on Education, every member of the Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education found enough to endorse in the draft the panel produced last month to support it over all. All of them, certainly, also found some aspects of the report objectionable, yet swallowed those objections and agreed, at a public meeting August 10, to sign the report. The panel’s members agreed at the time that the report would undergo only minor copy editing and “wordsmithing” between then and when it was formally presented to Education Secretary Margaret Spellings later this month.

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That agreement was nearly imperiled last weekend, though. Gerri Elliott, corporate vice president at Microsoft’s Worldwide Public Sector division, sent an e-mail message to fellow commissioners Friday evening saying that she “vigorously” objected to a paragraph in which the panel embraced and encouraged the development of open source software and open content projects in higher education. The paragraph read like this:

The commission encourages the creation of incentives to promote the development of open-source and open-content projects at universities and colleges across the United States, enabling the open sharing of educational materials from a variety of institutions, disciplines, and educational perspectives. Such a portal could stimulate innovation, and serve as the leading resource for teaching and learning. New initiatives such as OpenCourseWare, the Open Learning Initiative, the Sakai Project, and the Google Book project hold out the potential of providing universal access both to general knowledge and to higher education.

While she agreed with the underlying idea that technological innovation aimed at sharing educational materials and furthering collaborative learning is essential, Elliott said, she took issue with the commission’s decision to weigh in on “the manner in which the underlying software is developed.”

“It is certainly a surprise entry and was absolutely never discussed in any of the meetings I attended,” Elliott wrote, adding that she would “never sign” a report that contained the paragraph as written. She proposed alternative language from which the word “open” was conspicuously absent.

A few hours later, just after midnight on Saturday, Charles Miller, the panel’s chairman, wrote in an e-mail that he believed Elliott’s proposed changes were “an improvement and consistent with the work of the commission.” He said the panel would make the changes “if there are no objections.”

But the objections came quickly, and in varying degrees of intensity. Charles M. Vest, president emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said that he was “generally comfortable” with Elliott’s suggestion but that he thought it essential that “open content” must stay. ("Open source,” he agreed, does not necessarily translate into “access to knowledge,” but “we must absolutely consider both commercial software platforms and open-source development as parts of the mix.") MIT has been a pioneer among colleges in making its course materials freely available online.

Richard Stephens, senior vice president for human resources and administration at Boeing, said he agreed with Elliott’s ideas, but still questioned whether it was appropriate to substantively change the draft the commissioners agreed to in August. “There are a number of commissioners that would like something changed, but felt that the report, while not perfect, reflected the findings and recommendations necessary to improve this nation’s higher education system,” Stephens said. “Unless we all agree, it would be difficult to accept this change and not the changes others would like to see.”

As is his wont, Richard Vedder, an outspoken economics professor at Ohio University, weighed in with all of his typing fingers blazing mid-day Saturday. Not only was the original version appropriate, Vedder said (open content “is a promising new trend in higher education that needs our explicit support,” he wrote), but more importantly, “I think it is outrageous to try to change the text of a document weeks after members have been asked to read it, and long after we have met and voted to sign it.” Vedder said he thought it might even be illegal to “change a report that has been voted on in a public meeting and to which people have already signed.”

Then he added: “I must say, and I am sorry if I offend Gerri, that many very important persons on this commission found the time to read the report when asked by the chair. Their corporate responsibilities, while great, were not so great that they neglected their responsibilities to the commission.... Perhaps Microsoft considered this a low priority part of Gerri’s work — if so she should not have accepted this assignment, or, if she did, she should accept the consequences of her failure to perform her duties as all other members of the commission have.”

Not surprisingly, Elliott was not pleased. She called the original wording of the document “parochial” and a “commercial endorsement of specific products.” (In an interview Thursday, Elliott noted that she had never, during the panel’s year of deliberations, “expressed endorsement of one platform over another — that would have been inappropriate. I was not on the commission representing my company, I was there to represent the workforce.")

And to Vedder’s comments on her tardy response to the commission’s report — she was traveling during the August 10 meeting, and did not join via teleconference as did several other panel members, including Robert Zemsky from Thailand — Elliott said in her e-mail reply that she was “completely offended by this personal attack.” “This has nothing to do with my ‘corporate responsibilities,’ and [Miller] was well aware of my availability and access in August.” (In Thursday’s interview, she added that she had given Miller her proxy at the August 10 meeting based on her sense of the report at the “macro” level, but had not had a chance to review the final document until recently.)

Ever the conciliator, James J. Duderstadt sought a compromise. While acknowledging that “we cannot reopen the wordsmithing of the final draft of the report to each of the concerns many of us had with specific details, he proposed language that both broadened the original paragraph to address Elliott’s concerns yet sustained references both to open content initiatives and to open source software. His proposal:

The commission encourages the creation of incentives to promote the development of information-technology-based collaborative tools and capabilities at universities and colleges across the United States, enabling access, interaction, and sharing of educational materials from a variety of institutions, disciplines, and educational perspectives. Both commercial development and new collaborative paradigms such as open source, open content, and open learning will be important in building the next generation learning environments for the knowledge economy.

Saturday night, Miller endorsed Duderstadt’s compromise, which he said was “an improvement in the language, and because it meets the intent of the original language, it should meet both the legal standard and the form of the motion we approved. We take that very seriously and again, that’s a matter of judgment, but I think it would meet a test of reasonableness and we would clearly and openly point out the change to the public.”

That didn’t quite go far enough for Elliott, though. She thanked Duderdstadt for his suggestion but objected to his proposed inclusion of “open source” ("it’s a method of coding software, and one of several available, period") and “open content” (a “term which can mean different things and enter us into some copyright debate"). She suggested language that struck those phrases.

Monday morning, Miller said the commission would go with Duderstadt’s compromise language, which he called “an improvement in the draft” that “does not require and will not be put to a vote.”

Later that morning, Elliott gave in, writing: “I support Jim’s paragraph as well.”

— Doug Lederman

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Comments

Fasinating Story!

First, I like the final paragraph — I think it is well stated in that what is most important are incentives for investment in new technologies that can enhance learning!

Second, open source and commercial are not mutually exclusive. Our organization, the IMS Global Learning Consortium, is a nonprofit group of organizations around the globe that agree on open standards that allow all types (open or commercial) of software and content to work together. This has the net effect of maximizing the return on investment made across the open side of things AND the commercial side of things because the interfaces are not reinvented and there are no longer two communities going off in different directions. We have many projects that cut across these domains — including ones like Common Cartridge that involve the major publishers, the commercial course management providers, and major “open” players, like Sakai and the Open University. And yes, Microsoft (other folks than the person mentioned in the article) is a member of IMS and supportive of the work, along with Apple, IBM, Oracle. and Sun. Also, many higher education leaders, like University of Michigan, Indiana University, MIT, Stanford, University of Wisconsin Madison, University Maryland University College. the California State System, and Cambridge are involved. However, many more institutions that could and should be driving this work need to get involved so their voice can be heard. Interestingly, Google is not participating, perhaps because they believe they can create their own proprietary formats in the education space. Please note that open source software does not equate to open standard interfaces developed in a cooperative, such as IMS. A product can be open source and incorporate an interface that is an attempt by a major player to dominate the market. Higher education take note of this important difference! Demand open consortial developed standards that level the playing field and increase competition.

Rob Abel CEOIMS Global Learning Consortium

http://www.imsglobal.org/

Rob Abel, CEO at IMS Global Learning Consortium, at 7:50 am EDT on September 1, 2006

The Value of Education: Priceless

...many more institutions that could and should be driving this work need to get involved so their voice can be heard.

Well said, Mr. Abel! One thing that is missing from our dialogue about ‘open content’ and ‘open source’ discussion is the value to the student. As technology advances, students in general are becoming more savvy; it is essential to the survival of the traditional brick and mortar higher education institutions as well as more innovative distance and distributed learning facilities that students be met where they are—and today that is in cyberspace.

Institutions must pay attention to the various CMs out there, and take note of their value based on the level of customer service provided to the student. We, the students, are the customer and generally are not concerned with the development platform of the interface: the concerns are whether the interface works to the extent that the appropriate content is available and whether that appropriate content can be accessed with minimal difficulty. The institution must be concerned of course with the security of information that should not be public, which leads back to institutional research into the product before purchase. As Mr. Abel suggests, participation widens the ‘playing field’and helps drive innovation and improvement. Additionally, the competition Mr. Abel mentions will occur not just in the arena of the CM developers, but in the higher education arena as well; better customer service ultimately means more students and increased revenue—a priceless combination.

Andree’ Robinson-Neal, Graduate Student at Fielding Graduate University, at 8:50 am EDT on September 1, 2006

All I can say is welcome to hiher education......maybe the commission ought to look at the above exchange.....to see what is wrong with higher education...deadlines and compromises mean little as they can always be changed.....trying to be all things to all people is very hard to do......maybe it is impossible to get perfect language into a document that will please everyone......as there will always be some special interest group that could take offense...

higher education ....is where debate happens each and every day.......with the outcome on some type of consensus....and with the hope that it meets the majorities ideals...

Jim, at 9:00 am EDT on September 1, 2006

Ms. Elliott doesn’t get it

It would be humorous if the position taken by Gerri Elliott wasn’t so disingenuous. On the one hand she takes exception to being chastised for not maintaining her responsibilities as a member of the commission, and further denied that her failure was related to corporate responsibilities. But then she states that she was not able to conference into the meetings, or attend them in person due to travel requirements. Apparently Ms. Elliott would have us believe that she and Microsoft saw her participation on this commission as a priority, her lack of due diligence notwithstanding. Excuse me, but that dog won’t hunt.

Scott, at 9:10 am EDT on September 1, 2006

Duderstadt got it right

The compromise language brought forward by James Duderstadt got it right. The commission should never have included language endorsing specific commercial initiatives like Google In Print. I commend Ms. Elliot for raising the issue and Mr. Duderstadt for finding the right balance in promoting open source and open content efforts.

Rich, at 11:40 am EDT on September 1, 2006

What does Microsoft have ANY say over this?

Who gave them a seat at the table and who thought it would be a good idea to premit a commercial entity to have any say in a scholarly academic report?

wmd, at 12:25 pm EDT on September 1, 2006

I’m fairly sure I’d be fired from my job if I didn’t do the work, didn’t show up for the meetings, and whined about the outcome of a meeting I didn’t attend after I signed off on a document I didn’t read.

derf, at 12:30 pm EDT on September 1, 2006

Rich’s comment

Commendations would be in order had she raised the issue in a timely fashion, and while the full committee had the opportunity to consider the merits of her position as a working committee. To raise an objection of this magnitude after the fact reflects either incompetence, disregard for protocol, or a hidden agenda; none of which have historically qualified as commendable behaviors Rich.

Scott

Scott, at 1:00 pm EDT on September 1, 2006

re: Duderstadt got it right

> The commission should never have included language endorsing specific commercial initiatives like Google In Print ..

But it is alright to have a VP of a commercial software company on the board.

This reminds me of what happened in Massachusetts when MS retrospectivly tried to get a reversal in the decision to move to the Open Document Format despite having a seat on the standards body.

I also find it disengenous that she claimed no prior knowlege of the paragraph.

Dave, at 1:25 pm EDT on September 1, 2006

My commendations and sincerest thanks go to Richard Vedder, who was willing to call out Gerri Elliot for her apparent negligence in her role on the commission. I appreciate the diplomacy and retraint shown by Charles Vest and Richard Stephens in their objections to Gerri’s last-minute proposal, but I believe that this situation was better served by Richard Vedder’s strength and candor.

Nate, at 2:00 pm EDT on September 1, 2006

too much business input

I’m of the mind that if business wants employees trained in a certain way, shape or form, they should pay for that training. When we give the business community more than their fair share of influence in setting educational policy, we continue down a path that doesn’t educate or appreciate people who can think for themselves, thinking that might better go against the grain of dominant market voices. Corporations have their best interests in mind, not the students.

bradley bleck, instructor at Spokane Falls CC, at 2:15 pm EDT on September 1, 2006

Endlessly attacking Standards

I never cease to be repelled by Microsoft’s unflagging attacks on OSS.

Not happy with Apache because it didn’t enrich them, they created IIS. Same with.ASP. and.NET

Every single product they sell is a bad copy of an OSS protocol or tool.

Not satisfied with muddying the waters, now they seem dead-set on ‘moving the river’ by dropping boulders in it.

Shameful, stupid and greedy.

Nice to see the effort to marginalize OSS was forestalled.

M. Douglas Wray, Why is this tolerated? at Anti-FUD Society, at 3:15 pm EDT on September 1, 2006

Scott and Dave’s Comments

Guys, your right. She failed to follow the appropriate process. I agree she should have raised this concern PRIOR to the vote. Maybe she even should have voted against the report if she (or Microsoft) felt that strong about it, or convinced the chairman to allow a minority views report as some suggested, but was reportedly rejected. As I recall this particular language miraculously appeared in the second draft, while not included in the first draft. Who was behind adding this in the second draft? To me, it doesn’t matter. It was a good idea to add at least some focus about course content and technology in a report that is supposed to be about the future of higher education. All I am saying is its better that she had raised concern over the language endorsing particular commercial for-profit programs then not raised it at all. I’m not complementing her on the approach or the timing. The commission addressed this particular issue fairly in the end. Anyone who knows anything about federal commission report drafting, knows its hard and often dirty work and changes to reports don’t end after a vote. The Chair himself indicated that there were a lot of things to clean up as they voted on the third draft.

Inside Higher Education and its sources have given a larger community a greater and a somewhat unattractive glimpse into this particular commission process and they deserve a great deal of thanks.

Rich, at 3:15 pm EDT on September 1, 2006

Why does one company get a veto over public policy?

I am happy that Microsoft did not totally gut the language, and the final version is not too bad, but honestly, why does one company get to have an implied veto over matters of *public* policy? Elliott’s opinions should not have even entered into the discussion. Hopefully this whole tainting of higher education policy will be instructive, and future efforts will be designed to be more resistant to these sorts of obvious conflicts of interest.

Cole Thompson, at 3:15 pm EDT on September 1, 2006

The result of Microsoft in education

Folks,

I see the results of Gerri Elliott’s position all the time. I constantly hear K-12 students talking about opening up “Internet Explorer", not “a Web browser". I hear them talking about making “PowerPoint slides” instead of “a slide presentation.” And, of course, “Word doc” instead of “document". Ms. Elliott obviously wants this to continue.

We must always remember that corporate entities, such as Microsoft and Apple, have a very different agenda than we educators do. They want to make “good little employees” that will get hooked on their products and demand them at work. We, on the other hand, want to, and are mandated to, teach our students how to learn. That means concepts, not MS Word-specific keystoke shortcuts. You want to learn the latter? That’s what trade schools are for, not K-12 or college-level education.

The gall of Ms. Elliott and her company is that not only did she object to open *source*, but also open *standards*. This is called “lock-in". We cannot, as educators, promote that, not even tacitly.

Steve Walker, Educator at Sorry, don’t want to lose my job, at 3:15 pm EDT on September 1, 2006

Irritate me more....

My initial reaction the reading this was irritation at the suggestion that ‘open’ be removed from the statement. I’ve learned (and sometimes even heed myself) that this irritation means I am making an assumption that my understanding is so ‘obvious’ everyone should ‘get it.’ This assumption is nearly always a bad one. In a sense the report was only endorsing a weather change as Higer Ed. turns favorably (again) towards open development to meet its needs. The truth in practice is that commercial *and* at least Community Source play interdepent roles in Higher Ed. communities.The statement was made better in the end, IMHO. IMHO, to achieve better results, sometimes we have to listen to things we don’t like to hear and better clarify our positons and definitions.....and this can be a pain in-the-end.

Jon Gorrono, UC Davis, at 9:30 pm EDT on September 1, 2006

Comission’s Charter....For Shame

One only has to look to the charter, under which the committee operates and where the committee members responsibilities are outlined, to estblish that Ms. Elliot’s is inappropriate, no matter the timing.

Even if her objection was put forth with the purest of intent, it should have been rejected simply because of the appearance of impropriety.

If she can point to any other language that was included in, or excluded from, the report that can be so directly linked to a commission member’s employment, I will be more sympathetic, but no less disapproving.

Shame on Ms. Elliot and shame on the commission.

Scott Martin, at 6:30 am EDT on September 2, 2006

More Nonsense from the Nonsense Committee

There’s nothing particularly new here. We already knew that Microsoft hates and fears open source and open content. There’s no reason to expect that any organization, commercial or otherwise, will change their strategies or priorities based on whatever document this committee chooses to emit. The trend toward free content and free software is real and accelerating, and nothing that a committee can say will change that — especially one that is supposedly academic in nature but which is in reality stacked with corporate interests.

It is, however, always amusing to see the negligence of someone at Microsoft revealed. It’s reminiscent of their effectiveness with their products’ information security.

Steve Foerster, Director of Instructional Technology at Free Curricula Center, at 1:05 pm EDT on September 2, 2006

A proposal for the adoption of open source software in education

I’m very much dismayed by the change in language becuase of the importance of open source software to the future of eductation. For more than a year, I’ve been working with faculty in my field of to draft a resolution for submission to our professional organizations: Proposed NCTE/ CCCC Resolution on the Adoption and Use of Open-Source Software. I would encourage teachers to read this proposal and develop similar resolutions in their field.

More background information on this proposal available in What the Commission Missed: The Proposed NCTE/ CCCC Resolution on the Adoption and Use of Open-Source Software.

Charlie, at 9:25 pm EDT on September 2, 2006

Even more egregious, considering

universities sit on large pools of people who need both employement and experience... Students! Open Source and Free Software give universities the opportunity to give their students badly-needed employment and, critically, real-world experience. While it makes much sense for a corporation to buy a software package instead of develop it in-house, a university’s aim is different, and it saddens me time and time again to see students being force-fed closed software instead of taking an active hand in the creation of software. There are opportunities across the board, from the obvious programming opportunites to translation to psychological human interface research and development to making the design friendly and aesthetically pleasing. The lack of cooperative, student-run software development at the university is truly a failure of modern higher education.

Joseph, A Midwestern University, at 5:10 am EDT on September 3, 2006

LINUX

Platform should be Linux, forcing conformity into a common softwarelevel of freeware and it’s excellent performance. All the code would be in Unix.What is so hard about that? Are we loosing profit?

Philip Edgar Beigbeder, Know at This, at 9:50 am EDT on September 3, 2006

The idea of education, is openness

How can you object to openness in education? Isn’t openness and sharing what education is all about. If we did not share our information and education with our children, we would not have survived, much less progressed as far as we have.

As a father, I want my son to have every opportunity available to him, therefore I share my knowledge and experience with him, I send him to school for education, I encourage his development. If I treated my son like Microsoft wants, a proprietary and secret entity that does not encourage sharing, innovation, and development, he would never learn to talk,, kick a soccer ball, use a computer, or survive on his own. If we treated our children like this, they would be useless jello.

Sharing of knowledge, including computer skills is essential to our futures, and must not be stifled by corporate entities interests. Schools need to teach concepts, not products. Give our children the ability to maintain a lead in technology, by teaching them the skills they need.

In my job at a medium sized healthcare provider, we use AIX, Netware, Linux, and Windows. We use OpenOffice, and Microsoft Office. As was stated above, shools that only teach the Microsoft products and Microsoft way, are killing our children’s ability to be competitive in the workforce, and in the world.

Danny Wall, Network Engineer at Information Technology Professional, at 10:05 pm EDT on September 3, 2006

Am I the only person shocked to see Mrs Elliott, employee from a mayor software company, on this board? Sounds like conflicting interests ...

Hans, at 5:15 am EDT on September 4, 2006

We don’t need ‘open source’ any more!

If I were on this committee (obviously I’m not) I would have responded to Elliot’s suggestion with an immediate correction from the ambiguous term ‘open source’ to the clearer ‘free software’.

Elliot’s comment that ‘open source’ is “a method of coding software, and one of several available, period” is accurate — that’s the meaning of the term, according to the people who defined and first advocated it at the OSI.

But most software described as ‘open source’ is *also*, and much more importantly, ‘free software’, meaning that its users have certain freedoms with respect to the software that they do not have with software from, for instance, Ms Elliott’s empolyer.

There is a substantial difference between free software and non-free, and the difference has nothing to do with “a method of coding software” and everything to do with the users’ control over their own data, which might otherwise be kept under lock and key by the software provider.

Anything less than free software is a step towards another loaded term, ‘vendor lock-in’. I wonder why committee members have not vociferously objected to the absence of this term in the memo ...

xoddam, at 5:15 am EDT on September 4, 2006

Library source is useful...

As a programmer I often find API documentation is not quite good enough (e.g. if something points at a result I do not care about, can I pass NULL? Without source I can not know). This extends to my own internal APIs inside my programs.

OS source is sometimes usefull too for questions like if I open a file, delete it and then create a new file with the same name what happens? API documentation rarely covers this sort of case.

Even if there is a more substantial specification, like MPI, it sometimes fails to specify some fine points which might be cirtical. I know of at least one serious instance in the MPI specification.

It might not help that I have a background in theoretical computer science, including an (accepted) PhD thesis in this area. Formal methods require you to state something if you care about it.

Microsoft is not big in this area, because enough mathematics features that LaTeX or TeX is almost always used. If you want to use a cluster it proiably runs unix, so there is little value in MS windows.

Duncan Simpson, Source matters, at 10:05 am EDT on September 4, 2006

The Board Does NOT Get It

Having M$ as a member of the board makes about as much sense as having a representative of the Catholic Church (no offense to the Catholic Church) as member of the Presidents Cabinet or even a 4th branch of the government.Whoever let this happened, doesn’t get it either. This is obvious conflict of interest.

Open Content provides the best platform for learning. Open Protocols provide the language that we all can communicate with. And Open Source and Free Source provides the best education material.We would not have Science today had it not been built on opennes.

Glenn Billings, ComSci Student, at 2:40 pm EDT on September 4, 2006

I see a lot of well-intentioned comments about Mrs. Elliott’s concern on the wording of one small paragraph in a rather large final report. However, most aren’t aware of many of the facts surrounding this issue. First, the committee had been meeting for more than a year and it is my understanding that Mrs. Elliott had not missed one committee meeting. Secondly, she is one of a number of commissioners from the private sector including other members from the information technology industry. Mrs Elliott was not traveling on busines but was traveling with her family on a well deserved vaction. Supposedly, the draft that she reviewed in late July had no such language and was only included at the the last minute by someone other than a commssioner. In all of the public available information from the commssioners meetings the topic had never been discussed. I believe it was always Mrs. Elliott’s position that to discuss specific technologies was indeed inappropriate given the committee membership that included private sector employees, hence her surprise that it was surreptitiously included at the last minute. Mrs. Elliott devoted many hours of her personal time to the commission, as most commissioners did, with the vast majority of topics covered having nothing to do with their jobs in the private sector. It was absolutely inappropriate for one of the commissioners to attack her in such a personal manner without knowiing, and judging from his wording, without caring about the circumstances surrounding her absence. He was clearly just trying to make an issue out something that could have been handle in a much more professional manner.

Steve, at 4:40 am EDT on September 5, 2006

Free Software in education

I am a recent (June 2006) graduate of one of the largest and oldest Universities in the Educational system of the U.S. . One of the things we learn in this school (thanks to the brave professors who dare to teach independent critical thinking in spite of the meddlesome nature of corporations), is that an educated voting public is ABSOULUTELY NECESSARY to the function of a democracy — remember the idea of democracy, that’s what we are “fighting” for is it not? Unfortunately the federal government — supposedly the guardian of our admired democracy — does not provide enough financial support for education and as a result it is becoming nearly impossible for most people to even get into college because of lack of funding. The LAST THING we need is more “business” in education. Let me tell you right now that the business world including M$ has all but destroyed the ability of colleges to provide a constructive learning environment unaltered by covert input from financial supporters which consist of major corporations in all areas of concern. Professors scramble to get grants to do research and the money comes from corporations; and for those reading who do not get this — you had better take a closer look. One of the bright spots in the whole mess is Free Software and the associated concept of an open communicative learning environment. It is important to note that Free software and Open Source software are not exactly the same ( if you don’t know what that means check out the GPL and the Open Source website ) but they are both better than the alternative corporate lock-in. If we don’t openly share information we do not learn. Cultures, including technological cultures, evolve and progress through open communication. The various corporate golems cannot continue to rule the lives of our citizens as they have for the past half century or more without dire consequences. Allowing “open standards” in the educational system seems to me to be the obvious choice and the way to a better future for all of us irregardless of one corporate biased opinion.

Reynold, at 1:25 pm EDT on September 5, 2006

I think that the final wording is more considered

I find the final version of the text to be more well-balanced than the original text, which did err (in my opinion) by constituting an explicit endorsement of certain products and, indeed as Ms. Elliott correctly points out, a strike against commercial efforts to do many of the same things.

We would be incorrect to equate “open source” with “freedom.” We would likewise be incorrect to speak negatively about products which are developed with the express intent of being profitable. Both of these goals are off-the-mark of what I consider should be our true goal: what will better prepare our students to walk out of an institution of higher learning with what he or she came in for?

Obviously, an official report from a Commission should do more than just express favor or disfavor about “where things are now.” Such a report should also “point the way.” But I believe that it should do so in terms of how the commissioners believe that the computer technology should play a role: in society in general, and in higher education in particular.

While I acknowledge Dr. Duderstadt’s recognition that there needed to be a compromise solution in this case, I am of the opinion that the very best thing to have done would have been to simply omit the last sentence entirely. The paragraph cited in the article reads much better without it. In my opinion, the contentious sentence simply did not belong there in the first place... not in either draft.

In closing, I would observe that Mrs. Elliott’s opinions seem to have been judged in part by her position in the company that she works for, and by the marketing stance of that company. Perhaps we seriously err by assuming that, by saying what she did, she was simply being a mouthpiece for “the evil empire.” Perhaps ... she was speaking for herself and in the best interests of the commission as she saw it. And perhaps ... either wholly or in part ... she was right. In any case, her opinions should definitely be held as much “in face value” for these purposes as that of any senior lecturer at any august institution.

(I am a disinterested and third-party observer.)

Mike Robinson, Technical Director, at 9:20 am EDT on September 7, 2006

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