I agree with Bruce on this, both his stance and his language.

George S. Vascik
Associate Professor of History

Miami University Hamilton
1601 University Boulevard
Hamilton, OH 45011

FAX:     (513) 785-3145
http://www.users.muohio.edu/vascikgs/
http://www.georgevascik.org
________________________________________
From: IT Services Sakai Gov [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bruce D'Arcus [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2011 10:10 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: addendum to governance policy

Apropos of my comments from a bit ago on use of Campus Pack in Niihka,
I'd like to argue we need to include language in our governance policy
that strongly discourages these sorts of decisions. I'm not sure what
the exact language should be, but for sake of argument, a straw man:

Enhancements to functionality offered in Niihka should be consistent
with the open source nature of Sakai. Where we (the governance
committee, MU) wish to offer improvements in areas of functionality
already offered in Sakai, we should seek to offer those enhancements
through contributions to the Sakai community source code. Use of
proprietary alternatives to Sakai functionality is not allowed, except
under exceptional circumstances.

A statement of this sort certainly has a philosophical basis, but I
believe is also eminently practical. If we find the wiki tool in CLE
inadequate, for example, then we can work with Marist College to add
xwiki support to Sakai, which is not only open source, but superior to
the Campus Pack alternative.

Bruce
--
Bruce D'Arcus
Associate Professor, Graduate Director
Department of Geography
Miami University
234 Shideler Hall
Oxford, Ohio 45056