Issues with Open Source Software Development.

Issues with Open Source Software Development.

by Bob Boufford -
Number of replies: 25

This was noted in Stephen Downes OLDaily newsletter (http://www.downes.ca/news/about_old.htm) :

Fundamental Issues With Open Source Software Development
The five major issues outlined in this article correspond with my own experience, especially bad user interface, poor documentation. The other issues speak more to the functionality of the software: feature glut, programmer centered design, and blindness to good features in commercial software. But for me, the biggest issue so far has been software installation - more than half (more like three quarters) of my attempts at sofwtare installs fail on the first try, leaving me with an appointment with Google and some detective work before this plug-in, or that application, will run. Thanks to Rod for passing this along. By Michelle Levesque, First Monday, April, 2004

Specific reference to article:
Fundamental issues with open source software development by Michelle Levesque
First Monday, volume 9, number 4 (April 2004),
URL: http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue9_4/levesque/index.html

Some thoughts to ponder as the Moodle developers community moves forward. Right now I will say that Moodle has been one of the easier open source CMSs to install even though it could be better.

Cheers,

Bob

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In reply to Bob Boufford

Re: Open Source Software- USER DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT

by John Gone -
Thanks Bob. I'm sure many of us will agree with much of what you've expressed and it follows then that you may wish to provide a few hints as to how Moodle could improve so as to rate a more satisfactory experience by yourself and others who may follow in your footsteps. This is a fundamental property of opensource, your input is actually considered valuable and necessary.
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In reply to Bob Boufford

Re: Issues with Open Source Software Development.

by Mike Churchward -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

Hmmmm.

I find it interesting that your biggest complaint is with the installation. I have been very impressed with the ease of installation of many Open Source applications (there are exceptions). Granted, sometimes you may need better than average understanding of your computing environment, but this is often the case with commercial software. I doubt that any institutions hand the tasks of installing and operating Blackboard or WebCT to non-technical people.

Moodle installed simply and perfectly. I built a Free-BSD server, almost without having to enter a keystroke.

Interestingly though, almost all of the problems identified here are typically resolved through the input of the non-technical participants of projects. Open Source is typically populated with 'geeks' (I'm one). Getting those others actively involved is crucial to the success.

mike

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In reply to Bob Boufford

Re: Issues with Open Source Software Development.

by Ger Tielemans -

Hello Bob, I see in your personal profil that you are supporting "one of the commercial products". Dare you give us the name of that product?

By the way I LOVE MOODLE more then anything else, but your remark about bad documentation hurts, especially when you look at several other Open Source projects and their way of documentation.. The counter part is that it works quicker to put a question in the forum and get the solution on the fly... THIS IS A FANTASTIC COMMUNITY, how is yours? (So if you cite me, then do not forget these two additional remarks..)

The writer of the article is a Mac user (are you also?) For them looks anything different then a Mac always strange.

Your last remark about difficult installation makes me wonder: Did you ever try it?

I did and I am not a programmer neither an admin...Windows2000, WindowsXP, for Linux We hired an expert to tune the serversystem... From inside my Moodle I can now as admin empty the database, then clean the moodle directory, reinstall a complete new update version of Moodle, let Moodle resead a complete new database and run in less then 5 minutes, how about your system?

Upgrading a running system without loosing data is also possible and very easy.

The only problem is the open source aspect: If I add my own changes, I have to THINK during update..

After installation I started swapping databases and tuned moodle-implemenations from windows to linux and back, later using the new course-backup and restore option.. GREAT

And when you look in the zip-file of the backup of  a complete course, (or in the backup of a glossary) you see a clean XML-tree. How is your backup, lets take for example the way your system is exporting system specific implemenations like glossaries, quiizzes, lessons.... dialogues, workshops...

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In reply to Ger Tielemans

Re: Issues with Open Source Software Development.

by Bob Boufford -

Ger and Mike,

I was just copying what I received. The only original comments that are mine and not the other authors, is the last paragraph on being thoughts to ponder and installation.

As to installation, from my experiences right now, Moodle is the second easiest to install behind WebCT Standard Edtion/Campus Edition. And the Moodle installation documentation particularly the Windows version, is pretty good compared to some other open source systems I've tried to install. But for some colleagues of mine, Moodle installation is still somewhat beyond them even though they have installed several versions of WebCT SE/CE on their Windows systems for test and development purposes. 

The difference? With WebCT CE-Windows, double click on Setup.exe, answer a few questions and that's it (excluding installation of the license server that appeared in WebCT CE 3.7) The WebCT-Linux/Solaris versions are almost as simple. I almost gave up on Moodle-Linux as the PHP and mySQL RPMs were a PIA to install. Fortunately, XAMPP made the Moodle-Linux install fairly easy for me even though I still would never see my colleagues attempting it.

I believe a large part of WebCT's original success was due to the ease of installation where any "non-technical but adept at installating software on Windows NT systems" faculty member could get the system running, try it out, work with it and start pushing it upwards through the institution to get it implemented across the institution. Add to that the semi-technical faculty who could install Red Hat Linux and WebCT-Linux and you start to get a good grass-roots movement going in the institution.

So the solution as I see it would be to have a Moodle distribution with an installer that does the full installation of  Apache, PHP, mySQL and Moodle including all the settings and configurations accomplished with the necessary user prompts just as we see with installers of most Windows applications and some Linux applications. And once it's installed, it's already up and running with no need to add and start services through a console/terminal. When I can give my colleague a distribution copy of Moodle (complete with Apache, PHP and mySQL) and say "just click on setup.exe", is when Moodle will overcome the installation issues brought up by Stephen Downes and Michelle Levesque.

As to Moodle itself... I like it very much. In many ways Moodle is still a "diamond in the rough" but so were early versions of WebCT SE. Moodle is a very good CMS now and has the potential to be the major open source CMSs thanks to the growing Moodle community. Of course that assumes Moodle isn't assimilated by "the BlackBorg" (the CMS that bought Prometheus and Web-Course-in-a-Box then killed them both.)

Ger, as you can gather from my comments, it's WebCT, since version 1.1 as both a horticulture faculty and WebCT administrator. And if you do some googling, you will also find that I worked three years for WebCT. I firmly believe WebCT CE and Vista are still the best of the commercial CMSs. But from my many years involved in turfgrass management, I also firmly believe in using "the best tool for the task at hand given a particular situation or environment." WebCT Vista and Blackboard are not for everyone and in many situations neither is WebCT CE, Desire-2-Learn or even Moodle. But I think Moodle will work very well for many situations including some personal e-learning projects outside of my work environment.

Cheers,

Bob

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In reply to Bob Boufford

Re: Issues with Open Source Software Development.

by Mike Churchward -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

...and it was only the installation portions that I was commenting back on. The other issues in the article were very interesting and worth noting. As is the installation issue.

I'm skeptical about the ease of WebCT on a Unix system though. Are you saying that non-technical users can get their Unix system, their web server (and whatever database support WebCT needs) without having to be comfortable with the system? If so, bravo. For a windows system, it should be simple - but most people don'r use Windows systems for large scale serving of web-based applications.

Your comment about making it easy for people to try is worth noting though. There are packages available for Windows that easily install PHP and MySQL on a Windows server. Perhaps we should provide a link to those.

But you also have to acknowledge the differing motivations. For a commercial product, people expect to get what they pay for. If they spend a lot of money, and can't get the product installed, they won't be happy - and the product won't sell.

For OpenSource, the motivation is different. There, success is measured by gathering enough interest to keep a product healthy and progressive. In reality, if some people won't take the time to try it, it won't hurt the project - as long as there are enough who are successful.

The value to those who use it, is the ability to affect change directly into the product they are using, quicky and more precisely to their needs.

mike

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In reply to Mike Churchward

Re: Issues with Open Source Software Development.

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers
Installing AMP: http://moodle.org/doc/?frame=installamp.html


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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Issues with Open Source Software Development.

by Ray Lawrence -

I have some sympathy with the some of the comments about installation as (even when following the instructions at Moodle.org) it took me a while to "get it". Of course once you've worked it out it's easy. A significant reason for my eventual success was that I was highly motivated to succeed, I really wanted to try out Moodle.

I'm going to have a look at the installation instructions and try to augment them with some images and may be some Flash (wide eyes) to make them more accessible. I can only approach this from a Windows perspective, I'm afraid.

I'll post details of progress in the Moodle Documentation course when I've something to show.

Call for help: I need access to a suitably enabled web server (AMP) for screenshots as I don't really want to use my own as it will disclose details which I don't want to be made public e.g. directory stucture, files, etc. Can anyone help?

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In reply to Mike Churchward

Re: Issues with Open Source Software Development.

by Bob Boufford -

WebCT, now known as WebCT Campus Edition, since the beginning had a web server (usually Apache) and database (BerkeleyDB) bundled in the distrubution. Just type "install.pl" on 'NIX systems or "setup.exe" on Windows systems, answer a few questions and sit back. Contrast this with Moodle, even with EasyPHP or XAMPP. It was this ease of installation in the late 1990's that allowed non-IT faculty (horticulture, history, geology) with enough basic skills to install a Windows NT or Linux system, to get the CMS system up and running in their own department and start empowering faculty to go online.

Neither a product or a project will succeed if people who want to try it cannot get it installed regardless of being a commecial product, shareware or open source. And it's not just a matter of expertise but also time. It's not "some people won't take the time to try it" but rather "some people don't have the time to try it" If a faculty has to spend a fair amount of time just getting the system up and running, that's time lost empowering the faculty to use Moodle. I started to look at some other open source CMSs but gave up because I just didn't have the time to deal with the installation and setup before I could even work in the CMS.

The most successful CMS implementations are the ones driven by faculty not by IT. Empowering faculty, not IT, to install and work with Moodle will be a key to it's success.

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In reply to Bob Boufford

Re: Issues with Open Source Software Development.

by Scott Grogg -
Bob,

I've been quietly lurking around reading this thread with a lot of interest. My first gut reaction is partial agreement with your initial posting about open source software. Many of them do have sub standard documentation, quirks, poor support, or other issues. But, I must admit that Moodle is quite the opposite. I've been very impressed with the documentation and installation procedures... even without the simplicity of an auto installer! This is coming from someone that was in full time ministry a few years ago and had no idea what a server was!

Personal experience with three successful installs of Moodle, and watching six others install the system, have proven that novices can have it up and running fairly quickly. Yes, it may have its quirks at times; but, most have been due to server related issues, or how a webhost has some of their settings turned off.

You wrote, "If a faculty has to spend a fair amount of time just getting the system up and running, that's time lost empowering the faculty to use Moodle." My question is this, is it truly the responsibility of the faculty to setup a cms? Why would they? If a cms is to be implemented at an institution, or corporate entity, you wouldn't want a hundred installations of a cms on the server, or even a hundred admins? I don't understand your thought processes. Could you elaborate?

One other quick question... I've been noticing a significant amount of larger institutions moving away from the giant, pay, cms (i.e. Blackboard, WebCT, etc.). Why do you think they are making that move? When I've asked their admins, it has been due to rising costs, lack of features, poor support, and difficulties with administration issues. Doesn't sound much different than what you've shared about open source systems.
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In reply to Scott Grogg

Re: Issues with Open Source Software Development.

by Paul Nijbakker -

Hello Scott,

My school may not be what you would call a larger institution in the US sense of the word. We only have about 3500 users overall. Still, we are moving away from WebCT and towards Moodle for just the reasons you have mentioned: grossly inflated license fees and no corresponding increase in functionality.

We have found that Moodle fulfils our teaching needs better than WebCT, while the costs are considerably lower. Still, it has been a struggle to convince our IT boys to adopt the open source solution. So I do believe that faculty play an important role in getting a CMS accepted. An IT team is only human and they may be comfortable with a Windows/WebCT system and be reluctant to try the road less taken.

Even though we have been able to get Moodle accepted with the support of our management, I will still be learning PHP, in order to be better able to administer and maintain our installation, in case our IT people fall short. You have given me hope: If a minister can master a Moodle installation, then a language teacher should have a chance to succeed too? approve

Incidentally, I do agree with the earlier posting in which a CD-based package of an auto-installer with Linux/MySQL/PHP and Moodle would sell well. I think Moodle.com should consider offering that service, before another enterprise comes up with one.

Kind regards,

Paul.

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In reply to Paul Nijbakker

Re: Issues with Open Source Software Development.

by Scott Grogg -
Paul,

I agree completely that a cd based package would be an awesome way of getting Moodle into the mainstream. It would probably get everyone a bit more on board with open source systems. I also agree that faculty, staff, and institutional admins need to be involved in the processes of research, design, and implementation of a cms.

Scott
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In reply to Bob Boufford

Re: Issues with Open Source Software Development.

by Ger Tielemans -

Bob, as you can read in some comments of me in other forums, I estimate WebCT higher then lots of the other products because it also offers (partly) a solution on what IMS calls the Enterprise Model level... But also I think that they have problems with being the first one and needing to stay compatible with technical solutions from the past (for their paying customers..)

I think you miss the point of easy installation: webservers need fine-tuning for the product you are using. (Human intuition is not always a good help, see the discussion about raising the numeber of allowed simultaan connections.)

I install on my laptop an standalone machines for tryout en testing Moodle myself, but hire a Linux expert for setting up the central production server of our nine schools..  (And still have an English time and date stamp when Moodleand I are conviced that we did choose teh right Dutch settings.. )

I also have a question - still not answered - about the upscale problems WebCT had in the past with their homebrew database (see the lecture in 1999 on Edmedia in Seattle by an Australian lady Dean)

What wonders me the most is the message of one of us in the forum that user accounts are very strange in WebCT:: Every course entry for the same user counts as a separate account?? So one user at our school would need 12 accounts?? Please say that that is not true..

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In reply to Ger Tielemans

Re: Issues with Open Source Software Development.

by Bob Boufford -

Ger,

WebCT has done extensive work to allow for better scalability. There are many institutions with 35,000 students or more successfully running WebCT Campus Edition even though with that enrollment number, even WebCT, Inc recognizes the limits of the software which is the reason behind WebCT Vista (please, I do not want to get into that discussion, it's really a different beast) and the announced plans to rewrite WebCT Campus Edition to support a more standard database. (Honestly do not know which one.) WebCT also runs as well on Windows servers as Linux servers for small to medium installations. For large installation, Solaris is still the server of choice. And scalability of Moodle to 10,000 students or more is still an unknown while the limitations of WebCT CE are pretty well known. Scalablity is definitly one issue that keeps being brought up about open source CMSs when I chat with The Geeks (<- note uppercase as sign of respect) who manage commercial CMSs.

Yes, the licensing of WebCT is still a carryover from the very first version where the license was based on seats in a course. So a student in five courses would occupy five seats against the license. The way Campus Edition is structured and administered, you can have unlimited users on the system (the "global database") but a license seat is not used until the student is enrolled in a course. If a student is deleted from a course or the course is "recycled", the seats are released back to the license seat pool. Also, after the release of WebCT version 2.0 in late 1999, the issue of students having multiple accounts is no longer a problem. Like Moodle, there is a central login where the students are presented with a list of courses they are enrolled in.

I agree that when it comes to deploying Moodle across the institution, there needs to be an administrator who can fine-tune the system. But my issue is you need to first get buyin to be successful. Moodle needs to be just like the days when PCs first started to appear in the university and corporate environment where people would quietly bring a system in under the radar of the "IT priests" and without the need of finding a resident IT geek for assistance. I think someone aptly put it in another message about "Moodle by stealth".

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In reply to Bob Boufford

Re: Issues with Open Source Software Development.

by W Page -
"Moodle by stealth"

Yes, I agree.  This may be one of the more subtle ways of promoting Moodle.  To promote as a personal thing and let it get its legs in an instrution by student word and discussions with faculty at breakfast, lunch, etc ........

WP1
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In reply to Bob Boufford

Re: Issues with Open Source Software Development.

by Ger Tielemans -

You have your point, glimlach

So a CD that would install a tuned server+PHP+MySQL+Moodle+phpmyadmin+cron+...

On the platform of my choice would be a great help... (Like some of the current Linux CDs)

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In reply to Ger Tielemans

Re: Issues with Open Source Software Development.

by Don Hinkelman -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers
This kind of Moodle Installation CD would be a godsend. I would pay for this (anyone at Moodle for Business listening?). Also a Linux box server with the whole works installed for sale would be lovely. I would pay $1000 for a simple server and $2000 for a high performance one. All of this would save me numerous hours per Moodle installation. Although I am the most technically proficient faculty in my department, it still takes me far too long to install things (days, not hours). Not because of Moodle so much, but AMP+Moodle.
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In reply to Don Hinkelman

Re: Issues with Open Source Software Development.

by Joyce Smith -
Don,
Why not go to http://www.moodle.com ?
Martin set me up within 20 minutes , he hosts my site, the support is tremendous and so quick ! Best support I have had for any software !
regards
Joyce
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In reply to Don Hinkelman

Re: Issues with Open Source Software Development.

by Timothy Takemoto -
I really agree with you there. It seems that there is money for the purchases of things. But no, or little money for "support." A box with Moodle in it would sell, I believe. I guess it would still need setup but I also guess it could just ask some questions - what is your IP address? What is your subnet mask?

If Martin is not going into manufacturing, perhaps we should Don?!

I am a bit too busy moodling.

Tim
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In reply to Bob Boufford

Re: Issues with Open Source Software Development.

by Bryan Williams -

And scalability of Moodle to 10,000 students or more is still an unknown....  I guess if you ignore folks like Travelocity and Yahoo that use the same database as Moodle you might get some mileage from that remark.  Database and hardware are the only scaling question here.

Yes, the licensing of WebCT is still a carryover from the very first version where the license was based on seats in a course.  Wonderful business model, but I seriously doubt it is sustainable in an era of macro-economics shock worldwide.

Yes, an auto installer would be nice for those that are confused about how to add a few remarks to a configuration file (which by the way is exactly what an auto installer does). I keep holding out for a good speech recognition program myself, so I don't have to bother with that complicated typing stuff.

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In reply to Bryan Williams

Re: Issues with Open Source Software Development.

by W Page -
Hi!

An installer would help the growth in use of Moodle.  This does not appear to be a priority in Moodle right now, especially with DMS, Movable Block and Wiki development all going on at essentially the same time.

It would be nice as a "ToDo" item for the future.

WP1
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In reply to W Page

Re: Issues with Open Source Software Development.

by Dale Jones -
For those using webhosts with Fantastico, it has Moodle included (1.2.1 I think for current versions of Fantastico). I found it after I'd already set up my moodle installations, and thought it would be useful for others to use to get running quickly. It sets the database up as well as the moodle install, although it doesn't install non-standard modules.

Being a purist though, I still use the "complicated typing stuff" that Bryan refers to. Putty.exe and SSH CLI for me any day!
HTH
Dale
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In reply to Bryan Williams

Re: Issues with Open Source Software Development.

by Mike Churchward -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

Are you saying that Travelocity and Yahoo use MySQL as well? I didn't know that...

mike

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In reply to Mike Churchward

Re: Issues with Open Source Software Development.

by Bryan Williams -

Mike, from the MySQL web site:

The MySQL database server is the world's most popular open source database. With more than five million active installations, MySQL has quickly become the core of many high-volume, business-critical applications.

Customers such as Yahoo!, Google, Cisco, Sabre Holdings (Travelocity), HP and NASA are realizing significant cost savings by using MySQL's high performance, reliable database management software to power large Web sites, business-critical enterprise applications and packaged software applications.

Bryan

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In reply to Bob Boufford

Re: Issues with Open Source Software Development.

by Zbigniew Fiedorowicz -
I understand there is a UK Moodle site with almost 20K students and several thousand courses.
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In reply to Bob Boufford

Re: Issues with Open Source Software Development.

by Andy Diament -

A few thoughts:

1) Server side software is always more likey to be more complex to configure/tune/maintain than client side/standalone software - it's nice to configure out the box in one go; well done to those that do make it as easy as possible, whether open source or commercial. But sometimes, you have to use that editor on those config/ini files...

2) Good software lasts a long time and develops becasue it meets user needs and does the job well. This includes easy installation and a good user interface. These things can take time to develop. If it's crap, people won't use it, whether they have to pay for it or not.

3) Good software, commercial or open source, still attracts communities on the web who can offer considerable advice for problems/howtos etc.

4) The big difference is that the community of developers can offer a superb, often same day service for advice and bugfixes (e.g. moodle), but this is because they have got behind a product that they believe in. You won't get that commitment for weak products, and you generally won't get this from commercial companies, whether developing commercial or open source products (eg apache,  sun, mandrake etc).

I continually to be amazed by, and grateful to this community for support and opening my eyes to e-learning resources.

Andy D

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