Day: August 21, 2006

I am an advocate for moving the control of server technology as close to the user as possible. Everyone’s computer would function as a server if I had my way. In keeping with this way of thinking, I have the opportunity to run the server and software responsible for this blog.

This blog operates on open source software. The software for the blog is WordPress and WordPress requires that the server also be running PHP and MySQL. If you are interested or just want to learn a little about what it takes to do this (might be less of a hassle than you anticipate), I have run across a useful audio/video tutorial that describes the process of setting up a WordPress blog.

Michael Geist, columnist for BBCNews, has added his commentary on the Blackboard patent claim. His comments describe the confusion that exists within the education community among academics who have worked with other learning environments for years and now are uncertain whether the software they use is in some type of patent violation.

In commenting on the Blackboard postion, Geist notes that Blackboard claims to be making a specific rather than general claim.

For its part Blackboard claims that the patents only cover narrow company-created innovations.

After reviewing the patent description, I find the claim of narrow company-created innovations difficult to interpret.