[Using Sakai] Jasig and Sakai Foundations To Pursue Merger

[Josh Baron]

I'm excited to be able to share with the Sakai community the announcement 
below (and attached).  The Sakai Board of Directors and Foundation staff 
look forward to engaging with all of our community members at the up 
coming EDUCAUSE conference, future regional meetings and, of course, 
online over the coming weeks to get your input and ideas as well as answer 
your questions.  If useful, we will post a FAQ in the next week or two 
based on questions that come in and/or hold some live "webinar" sessions.

Jasig and Sakai Foundations To Pursue Merger

Early this year, Jasig, the parent organization for uPortal, CAS, Bedework 
and other open source software serving higher education, and the Sakai 
Foundation, which supports the Sakai Collaboration and Learning 
Environment, formed Board-level groups to examine ways the two 
organizations could collaborate more closely. These Strategic Alliance 
Committees, led by Jasig Chair Aaron Godert, and Sakai Foundation Chair 
Josh Baron, met in New York in September to consolidate the outcomes of 
their discussions and bring proposals to their respective Boards.

Based on the recommendation of both Strategic Alliance Committees, the 
Jasig and Sakai Foundation Boards of Directors are today, October 7, 2010, 
jointly announcing an intention to pursue a merger of their two 
organizations, subject to the approval of their respective communities. 
The new entity would foster the development and use of open source 
software that supports the academic mission. This goal would be achieved 
through the identification and promotion of related best practices for 
increasing effectiveness, efficiency, and innovation in academic 
institutions, while lowering the risk of the development and adoption of 
open source software. It would support the further development of 
communities of interest and practice to explore the use of open source 
systems and tools to support teaching, learning, research, and other 
aspects of the academic enterprise. These communities of interest will 
strongly inform future software development effort.

“Through the discussions over the past several months it has become clear 
to me that Sakai and Jasig share, at a strategic as well as operational 
level, much in common”, said Josh Baron. “I am excited by the coming 
together of our organizations, which I see as a natural step in the 
evolution of higher education open source initiatives, as it will 
facilitate many new and exciting opportunities across the academy.”

The new organization would provide shared infrastructure, expertise, and 
other resources for the development of a wide range of open source 
software projects that are designed to meet the needs of academic 
institutions. It would conduct outreach and explore more meaningful 
relationships with a broad range of open source and standards 
organizations. It would provide a clearinghouse for best practices on 
related management issues such as crafting open source-friendly 
procurement processes and assessing the adoption risks of open source 
software. 

The Jasig and Sakai Foundation Boards of Directors share the conviction 
that the values of openness, transparency, and meritocracy that underpin 
successful open source projects are profoundly congruent with academic 
values. We believe that, beyond the benefits that the software itself can 
provide, fostering the skills and experience necessary to manage the 
development and implementation itself will strengthen both the commitment 
and the effectiveness with which our respective institutions uphold these 
values across the entire range of academic endeavors.

“As we look to position our products and communities for continued and 
sustainable success into the future, the opportunity for Jasig and Sakai 
to join efforts and create a more robust network of open source innovation 
and community engagement, is one I am enthusiastic about,” said Aaron 
Godert.

Moving forward, the two Strategic Alliance committees will continue their 
due diligence regarding the mechanics and practicalities of a merger and 
will seek ongoing input from their communities. They will craft a detailed 
proposal to be approved by the respective Boards of Directors and then 
voted on by their respective communities in the coming months and will be 
regularly communicating as this work progresses.

About Sakai
The Sakai Community develops and distributes the open-source Sakai 
Collaborative Learning Environment, an enterprise-ready collaboration and 
courseware management platform that provides users with a suite of 
learning, portfolio, library and project tools. Sakai collaborators - 
ranging from educators to engineers - share in their successes and 
challenges, honing the community's collective expertise to drive rapid 
development of this enterprise-ready platform. Sakai is distributed as 
free and open source software under the Educational Community License. 
Sakai is an open source software project driven by the Sakai Foundation, a 
worldwide consortium of institutions, organizations, and individuals 
dedicated to providing collaboration, research, and e-portfolio tools. The 
Sakai Foundation is a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to 
coordinating activities around Sakai and the Sakai community to insure 
Sakai's long-term viability. For more information, please visit www.
sakaiproject.org.


About Jasig
Jasig is a global consortium of educational institutions and commercial 
affiliates sponsoring free and open source software projects for higher 
education.  Jasig is a member supported, non-profit corporation aiming to 
attract, advance, and sustain communities developing enterprise-level, 
open source software that helps institutions fulfill their goals. Jasig 
connects people, provides infrastructure, and sponsors events that foster 
innovation and collaboration.  Jasig's flagship projects include uPortal, 
an enterprise portal; CAS, the Central Authentication Service used for 
single sign-on and secure, proxied authentication; and Bedework, an 
enterprise calendar used for public events and personal and group 
calendaring. Jasig also manages a Project Incubator designed to mentor new 
open source projects and sponsors communities of practice, such as The 
2-3-98 Project, which aims to help institutions understand how to exploit 
open source.  For more information, visit the Jasig website at www.jasig.
org.



-----------------------------
Joshua Baron
Senior Academic Technology Officer
Marist College
Poughkeepsie, New York  12601
(845) 575-3623 (work)
Twitter: JoshBaron
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://collab.sakaiproject.org/pipermail/sakai-user/attachments/20101007/ae3844b6/attachment-0001.html 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: JasigandSakaiFoundationstoPursueMerger(FINAL).doc
Type: application/octet-stream
Size: 35328 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://collab.sakaiproject.org/pipermail/sakai-user/attachments/20101007/ae3844b6/attachment-0001.obj