"What concerns me is that we are going to have to take it seriously from a LCMS analysis position JUST BECAUSE it's seems to be going through so much money. It's got lots of fancy names associated with it, an international sounding acronym and funds for publicity."
You probably have to include it in the round up if you are evaluating LMSs, granted. But at the time of evaluating Free/Open Source Software, you have to consider the openness of the development process (cathedral-ness vs bazaar-ness), low barriers of entry to development, diveristy of parties involved directly in development, project leaders (people with charisma, I mean), life and evolution of the project and community, etc.
Having IBM on your side works if you already have those things that make a FOSS project successful. But Sakai is very transparently an old-school cathedral project, with an open source license. Oh, and a license to have access to the developers. (Ack?! What???)
Not a FOSS project in spirit and dynamic, not at all.
Compare any of the BSDs with GNU/Linux distros -- not today, but roll back time perhaps 5 years. And see how the BSDs have lagged because they are less bazaar-like than the Linux kernel plus the zillion projects that make a distro.
More to the point, compare the low barriers of entry, and how smart people know that the real 'feature' of FOSS is easy customization:
- Exhibit A - Concerns over Sakai
http://www.earlham.edu/~markp/cms/reports_proposals/MITC/MITC_position_sakai.php
- Exhibit B - While we tested, we naturally started customizing
http://www.learningtoo.info/scottblog/?p=90
Comparisons and advocacy
Sakai forums
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