Pushing the Boundaries of Open Source: The Sakai Project Dr. Charles Severance Executive Director Sakai Foundation

Sakai in one Slide.... Collaboration, Teaching, and Learning FOSS - 100% free to use, modify and contribute Sakai is 3 years old Non-profit Sakai Foundation January 2006 Financial support from 100+ Higher Education, 15 companies Six paid staff members 100+ people developing and testing Sakai releases Overview Video:

ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE Enterprise Software is software that solves an enterprise problem rather than a departmental problem. Due to the cost, only large organizations attempt to build software that models the entire business enterprise and is the core system of governing the enterprise and the core of business communications within the enterprise. From: Wikipedia

ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE As many business enterprises have similar departments and systems, enterprise software is often available as a suite of programs that have attached development tools to modify the common programs for the specific enterprise. Mostly these development tools are complex programming tools that require specialist capabilities. Thus, one often sees in job advertisements that a programmer is required to have specific knowledge of a particular set of tools, such as "... must be an SAP developer" etc. From: Wikipedia

ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE As many business enterprises have similar departments and systems, enterprise software is often available as a suite of programs that have attached development tools to modify the common programs for the specific enterprise. Mostly these development tools are complex programming tools that require specialist capabilities. Thus, one often sees in job advertisements that a programmer is required to have specific knowledge of a particular set of tools, such as "... must be an SAP developer" etc. From: Wikipedia

CRITICISMS… Often the term is used to mean virtually anything, by virtue of it having become the latest corporate-speak buzzword. Some enterprise software vendors using the latter definition develop highly complex products that are often overkill for smaller organizations, and the application of these can be a very frustrating task. Thus, sometimes "enterprise" might be used sarcastically to mean overly complex software. From: Wikipedia

TWO APPROACHES TO ENTERPRISE SOURCE….

CUBICLE SOURCE A cubicle is a partially enclosed workspace, separated from neighboring workspaces by partitions, generally five to six feet high. The term cubicle comes from the Latin cubiculum, for bed chamber. From: Wikipedia

Cubicle Source Variants Universities buy large proprietary systems and then locally customize the systems to meet local needs. Universities simply write and maintain systems all by themselves themselves.

Cubicle Source Project Plan

-5 Time in Years Relative to Planned Rollout Hire Consultants Attend Vendor Meetings Write CheckGather Requirements Customize Hire Consultants Performance Test Redo Customizations Partial Rollout Ignore User Requirements Full Production Rollout Budget Planning Increase Staff +3 Decide: Never Upgrade

Cubicle Source Project Plan Hire Consultants Attend Vendor Meetings Write CheckGather Requirements Customize Hire Consultants Performance Test Redo Customizations Partial Rollout Ignore User Requirements Full Production Rollout Budget Planning Increase Staff +3 Decide: Never Upgrade Vendor Drops Support +5

CUBICLE SOURCE A cubicle is a partially enclosed workspace, separated from neighboring workspaces by partitions, generally five to six feet high. The term cubicle comes from the Latin cubiculum, for bed chamber. From: Wikipedia

A New Approach to Enterprise Applications Community Source

OPEN SOURCE There are many definitions of Open Source Community Source tends follow to Apache –Commercial friendly license –Developer-centric governance / Meritocracy –Apache has built broad-use utility software Community Source borrows Open Source –Cultural approach and values –Licensing and governance

COMMUNITY SOURCE Colleges and universities have used the term Community Source to refer to a type of community coordination mechanism that builds on the practices of open source communities. The Community Source Model is a hybrid model that blends elements of directed development, in the classic sense of an organization employing staff and resources to work on a project, and the openness of traditional self-organizing open-source projects like Apache. From: Wikipedia

Community Source (fast) -12 Time in Months Relative to Planned Rollout -6 0 Hire Consultants Attend Community Meetings Write CheckGather Requirements Customize Hire Consultants Production RolloutTransition Year Budget Planning Increase Staff Upgrade, Skip a Version +18 Start PilotTraining Shut off Old Product

Community Source Project Plan -3 Time in Years Relative to Planned Rollout -20 Contribute to Community Attend Community Meetings Write Foundation Check Gather Big Requirements Customize Take a serious look Install Pilot ServerTransition YearReallocate Staff +1 Upgrade, Skip a Version Install Pre-Pilot Training Shut off Old ProductUser Requirements Production

The need for “Commons” For community source to work there needs to be an independent external entity that “tends the commons” Members of the community who participate in commons may come and go - but the commons must live on independently. There must be a contact point for a new member to “find and join” the commons.

Evolving Approaches to Community Source

COMMON THEMES Open Source / Open License Encourage Commercial Involvement for schools with smaller IT staffs Some formal “Commons” or “Foundation”

uPortal Mellon-Funded - Uni. Delaware Led Grant-Funded commons (5 years) –Unicon –Instructional Media and Magic Conferences people Sustainability Issues Now building the JA-Sig Foundation –Jonathan Markow

Sakai Mellon-Funded - Uni. Michigan Led Borrowed Heavily From uPortal Staff and leadership were Higher-Ed Sakai Partners Program - solve sustainability from the beginning Sakai was a sprint - we built the bike while we were riding it Conferences people

Kuali Financial Services Mellon-Funded - Indiana Uni. Led Improvements –Built community slowly - understand the culture –Functional Council - Better Predictability –Better use of the seconded resource model Differences Versus Sakai –Well-understood problem space - functional experts do exist - and they agree after some discussion –Patient adopter base - sees the benefit of “doing it right from the beginning”.

Kuali Research Administration Starting with Kuali governance model Part of the Kuali Foundation Differences from KFS –Very common to have local-developed quirky solution –Much more diverse environment - funding agencies - legal requirements -

Kuali Student Working on Mellon-Funding Led by University of British Columbia Unique Approaches –Service Oriented Architecture –Multi-Year architecture and use case phase up front –Shows the level of belief in the C.S. model that visionary CIO’s have developed

Fedora Commons Very mature project Well established in the market place Well established leadership and culture Many years of solid Mellon, NSF, and other funding Long-term sustainability plan Clear “commons pattern”

Evolution There is a community of communities We learn from each other and evolve Each community will be somewhat different based on stakeholders which make up the community - this is OK We have talked about an über community - it is a challenging problem

An Example Commons The Sakai Foundation

Mission Statement The mission of the Sakai Foundation is to hold ownership of the Sakai software and to guide and nurture the community of activity around the Sakai software. The Sakai Foundation seeks to maximize the positive impact of the Sakai software, technology, and community on teaching and research.

Sakai Stakeholders CIOs and IT Management –Contributing Organizations –Adopting Organizations –Supporting Organizations –All Organizations Deploying IT Staff Technical Support Staff Designers and Developers End Users –Teachers, Students, People

Production Servers

Members without Servers

Volunteers Core Sakai –900,000 Lines of Code –$13 million dollars investment –53 Volunteer Developers Contrib –800,000 Lines of Code –47 Volunteer Developers QA Averages 60 people and over volunteer 1000 hours per release See Developer Video:

Community Flows

Sakai Sub Communities Teaching and Learning Technology Portfolio Implementation User Experience Research

Sakai Conference Tracks June 12-14, 2007 Amsterdam, NL

Approaching a C.S. Effort How large is your IT staff? Do you want to innovate or just use? Do you want to truly influence the direction of Sakai?

Levels of C.S. Involvement Top Tier –Have 3-8 staff who evolve and customize the product –Contribute 20-40% to the common good –Join foundation and provide community leadership Mid Tier –Have 2-3 staff focused on local issues –Contribute patches and fixes –Join Foundation to acknowledge value “It is just a product” Tier –Have 0-1 staff, often local support only –Outsource all technical details –What Foundation?

Top Tier Sakai Members Current –Cambridge UK, Michigan, Indiana, Foothill College, Stanford, UC Berkley, Rutgers University, University of Capetown, Virginia Tech, rSmart Up and coming –Charles Sturt University, Oxford UK, University of the Highlands and Islands (Scotland), Boston University, Unicon, Valencia, Uni. Fernando Pessoa, Georgia Tech

The Community Effect CIOs have each other on IM Programmers in cubes around the world have each other on IM and speak on first name basis - “Yes that is just Stephen being Stephen” It is like a startup company “under glass” We do all of the things companies do - but transparently - with 1500 people watching

A day in the life of a Sakai ant…

Dr. Chuck A day in the life of a Sakai ant…

Dr. Chuck A day in the life of a Sakai ant…

Dr. Chuck A day in the life of a Sakai ant…

Dr. Chuck A day in the life of a Sakai ant…

Dr. Chuck A day in the life of a Sakai ant…

SUMMARY Enterprise Software is a different animal –Many different use cases and users –A kit of capabilities –Customization / Localization is the norm Community Source –Shortens the distance between user requirements and developer keyboards –Participating allows “customization” to become part of the product - not just local

CONCLUSION Why community? –Share Risk –Control Destiny –Open Communication - success and failure –Save money - sure one of these days Don’t just think LMS / Sakai –Think financial systems, student systems, library systems - things that really cost money.

Thank you for your time