Dear Fellow Moodlers:
This article was written
by Tim Weber (at the BBC website )
Since this story ,is similar to what happened to me,I thought it helpful to share it with ,you,and perhaps save you the pain and expense...
Falling into the Vista trap
By Tim Weber
Business editor, BBC News website
Microsoft promises to wow people who are upgrading from Windows XP to its new operating system, but with the joys of Windows Vista comes plenty of pain.
(Computers look complicated, but are easy to upgrade)
I know, I know, I'm a sucker for technology.
The shiny new Vista disk was sitting on my desk, and I just couldn't resist giving it a try.
Even though I fell for Vista's promise - more security and certainly much more fun than tired old Windows XP - I tried not to be stupid.
I knew my four-year-old PC might have trouble coping with Vista, not least because of its wheezing graphics card.
When I bought it, my Dell Dimension 8200 was fairly state-of-the-art (a few stats for the experts: Pentium 4 processor running at 2GHz, 384MB of RAM, a 64MB graphics card, and a Creative SB Live audio card).
Since then I had added memory (to 768MB), a second hard disk, extra USB ports and a Wifi card.
A blunt message
But this was probably not enough, so I downloaded Microsoft's Vista Upgrade Advisor.
Microsoft's message was blunt but useful: Yes, my computer could happily run Vista, but it would need a few crutches and new body parts. Step-by-step instructions told me how to avoid problems:
* Get a new graphics card with at least 128MB memory;
* download new software for the Linksys Wifi network card, to sync my PDA with Outlook and to make good use of my multimedia keyboard;
* download the latest version of my Kaspersky Antivirus software.
* With a few minor exceptions, the rest of my set-up was given a clean bill of health, including my webcam and printer.
It turned out to be tricky to find the right graphics card. Most shopping websites were useless in providing information on Vista compatibility.
At least a dozen times, I discovered in the small print on manufacturers' websites that there were no Vista drivers for that particular piece of hardware. I finally settled on a Nvidia GeForce 6200 with 256MB memory.
Now here is the dirty little secret of all the expensive PC helpers out there. Upgrading hardware is really easy.
As long as you make sure the new hardware fits into the slots that come with your computer and does not overburden its power supply, it's usually just a case of carefully lifting out the old and slotting in the new piece of kit.
Do check the manual, though, to see whether you need to install the driver software for your new equipment before or after putting it in.
If you are still worried, go online. You can find plenty of videos and manuals providing step-by-step guides on how to do it.
Then I followed the task list drawn up by Microsoft. The Upgrade Advisor even provided direct links for downloading new drivers and other software.
Taking one more precaution, I made a full back-up of all my documents to an external hard drive.
A good start
Finally I was ready to go.
I had read somewhere that a Vista installation would take 20 minutes. Not if you upgrade from XP.
HAVE YOUR SAY
Vista looks snazzy, but functionally, there isn't enough to warrant the price of upgrade yet
Andrew McKendry, Stockton, UK
After three-and-a-half hours of churning, at long last the Vista logo filled my screen.
It was the beginning of a day of anguish.
At first sight, everything had worked fine: All user accounts, complete with documents and software, were present and accounted for.
Vista looked slick. Its user interface was clear and set-up seemingly easy. The XP gobbledegook had disappeared from dialogue boxes.
Installing the new wifi driver and anti-virus software was a cinch.
Software worked straight away - whether it was Microsoft Office, Firefox or my very old copy of Photoshop Elements.
Feel the pain
But soon the problems began to mount:
* Where was the internet? I could see my router, but nothing beyond - even after a full day of tinkering with various network wizards. My BBC laptop proved that this was not a problem with my router or ISP.
* Why did my Philips webcam refuse to work? The Upgrade Advisor had explicitly said it would.
* What hardware was responsible for the three driver errors flagged up by Vista? One seemed to be the sound card - oh yes, why did I have no sound? But which mysterious "PCI input device" was lacking a driver? And what was the "unknown device" flagged up by Vista?
* Why did I get a "disk is full" error message every time I tried to install my keyboard's new Intellitype software? Why did Vista refuse to uninstall the XP-version of Intellitype?
* I knew that Apple had failed to make iTunes Vista-ready, so I didn't even try.
* But why did Microsoft's successor of Activesync, called Windows Mobile Device Center, refuse to hook up Outlook to my trusty old Pocket PC?
Fiddling around with Vista's settings, I soon found myself deep below its slick interface.
And the deeper I got, the more the look and jargon of dialogue boxes took me back into the world of XP.
It took me one day to get online. The detail is tedious and highly technical: reinstalling drivers and router firmware didn't work, but after many trial and error tweaks to Vista's TCP/IP settings, I had internet access.
Once online, Creative's website told me that my sound card was a write-off. No Vista support would be forthcoming.
Grudgingly I ordered a new one. After installing it, the hardware error messages disappeared; the three different errors flagged up by Vista were all triggered by my old sound card.
I also realised that my computer really needed more memory. Annoyingly, my Dell uses an unusual flavour of memory, called RDRAM, which is rare nowadays.
Two lost and one successful eBay auctions later, I installed one extra gigabyte of memory.
So far the upgrade to Vista had cost me about £130.
Not cheap, but probably fair value, as it will have extended the life-cycle of my PC by about two years.
Bearing a grudge against Philips, Dell and Microsoft
But a few problems refuse to go away and are both expensive and aggravating.
VISTA PC SPECIFICATIONS
VISTA CAPABLE
800MHz processor
512Mb memory
DirectX9 capable graphics processor
PREMIUM READY
1GHz processor
1Gb memory
128Mb graphics memory
40Gb hard drive
DVD-ROM
Internet access
My Philips ToUCam still doesn't work, and plenty of angry forum debates are testament to the distinct lack of Vista support provided by Philips.
Even worse, Vista still refuses to talk to my Dell Axim X5 Pocket PC, which is a mere three-and-a-half years old.
I like my PDA. It saved my bacon when my laptop died on a reporting trip. Over five days, I filed 14 stories using the Axim and its foldable keyboard.
I don't want to buy a new one - at least, not until I find an affordable smart phone that is both slim and has a slide-out keyboard (what's on the market right now is too bulky for my taste).
But my Axim uses the Pocket PC 2002 operating system, and Microsoft has decided that Vista will work only with Pocket PC 2003 and higher.
A top Microsoft executive, who does not want to be quoted by name, tells me that "the refresh rate on [mobile] devices is typically 18 months, from our research - hence the view that most Pocket PC 2002 devices would no longer be in use.
"Our view (which may be incorrect) is that those people using the latest Desktop [operating system] would potentially also be using later devices as well."
Well, I have a surprise for Microsoft: They are wrong, not least judging from the discussions on various forums I've been to while hunting for a solution.
While Microsoft leaves me out in the cold, Dell is no help either.
Delving into a Dell support forum, I realise the company practises tough love. Very briefly, a couple of years ago, Dell offered X5 customers an upgrade to Pocket PC 2003. Not anymore.
So I can either throw away my Axim and invest another £200 or £300 (for a PDA and webcam), or roll back to XP and wave Vista goodbye.
To Vista or not to Vista
I find myself caught in the Vista trap. Quite apart from the pain of having to reinstall XP, I do like Vista.
It's slick, it's fast, it is very user-friendly. I like its applications - for example, Windows Picture Gallery, which could become a serious competitor to my favourite image browser, Faststone.
However, there are still plenty of wrinkles. The Windows "sidebar" may look nicer than Google desktop, but it crashes regularly and infuriates me because its "gadgets" can not be customised.
I've had two Vista crashes so far - not a blue but a black screen - and that really shouldn't happen. I can't even remember my last XP crash.
And everywhere I look, there are blogs and forums full of people who have problems with software drivers and suffer the poor customer support of the hundreds of hardware and software vendors that make up the Windows ecosystem.
So would I do it again?
The answer is no. Do what I originally had planned to do. Wait for half a year until the driver issues are settled and then buy a new PC.
Once that's in place, you can upgrade and tinker with your old machine, to give to your parents or children.
You will probably enjoy Vista, but there's little reason to do it the hard way.
Update 20 March 2007:
* After four different attempts to solve the problem with my keyboard's Intellitype software, a Microsoft engineer sorted the issue by crawling for 75 minutes through my Registry Editor.
* Last night I finally found a driver in an arcane corner of the Philips support website that I could force to work under Vista; the driver installation did not work out of the box, though, and I had to jump through several hoops to force its installation; Philips now say they hope to release a set of Vista drivers in April
* I've given up on the crash-prone, resource-hogging Windows sidebar, and I'm back with the Google desktop sidebar.
* Vista still refuses to speak to my handheld computer, and Microsoft says that this won't change; I now use the Windows XP computer at work to maintain and sync my calendar and address book, which is a huge inconvenience.
* Many thanks to all the readers who wrote in with tips and shared their Vista stories - much appreciated.
I have to tell you almost everything and more, happened to me,with
Vista in two different computers ,:one with Vista Ultimate, and the other with Vista Business,all my computers are Pentiums dual core.
After a month of trying,I finally gave up and went back to XP Pro.
(now I have true peace of mind,Minus $ 500.00 (Canadian dollars )
(No effective help was provided by Microsoft either.Still they don't even know how to solve the problem,until they get the first service pack in at least 5-10 months )
Vista in two different computers ,:one with Vista Ultimate, and the other with Vista Business,all my computers are Pentiums dual core.
After a month of trying,I finally gave up and went back to XP Pro.
(now I have true peace of mind,Minus $ 500.00 (Canadian dollars )
(No effective help was provided by Microsoft either.Still they don't even know how to solve the problem,until they get the first service pack in at least 5-10 months )
Thank you for posting this, Max! Now I will NOT fall into the Vista trap.
-- Art
Mind you,
all these comments probably do not apply ,
to brand new computers loaded with Vista,
(since they do not have any XP software installed ) .
all these comments probably do not apply ,
to brand new computers loaded with Vista,
(since they do not have any XP software installed ) .
Max, I appreciate the sharing of internet articles, but can you please just link to the original articles instead of copy/pasting?
Not only is this a better way of treating copyrighted material legally but it will unclog the forums a bit.
Cheers
Not only is this a better way of treating copyrighted material legally but it will unclog the forums a bit.
Cheers
Martin,: Ok,Sure
Cheers
Cheers
There are a trillion differences between Moodle and Windows but lately the update path of both seem to feel rather similar in that while I don't particularly want to update either I may have to, incurring considerable expense.
I am still on Windows 2000 which works wonderfully for me but more and more software is requiring XP or above. And one day soon Microsoft is going to stop providing bug fixes for Windows 2000.
I am still on Moodle 1.6.x which (other than bugs) works wonderfully for me, but more and more software (modules) are requiring 1.7 or above, and bug fixes for 1.6 are already, perhaps, no longer provided.
The biggest difference is that all versions of Moodle are free. But alas if I want to stay up to date with Moodle bug fixes I will need to find the funds for updates to Moodle software (modules) that I am using, which will cost considerably more, a couple of times more, than upgrading to Vista.
This makes me feel more positive towards Microsoft, since I feel that the upgrade 'trap' (?) happens to the best of software. The upgrade 'trap' of software is like 'death and taxes', or the cycle of the seasons: inevitable perhaps.
Tim
I am still on Windows 2000 which works wonderfully for me but more and more software is requiring XP or above. And one day soon Microsoft is going to stop providing bug fixes for Windows 2000.
I am still on Moodle 1.6.x which (other than bugs) works wonderfully for me, but more and more software (modules) are requiring 1.7 or above, and bug fixes for 1.6 are already, perhaps, no longer provided.
The biggest difference is that all versions of Moodle are free. But alas if I want to stay up to date with Moodle bug fixes I will need to find the funds for updates to Moodle software (modules) that I am using, which will cost considerably more, a couple of times more, than upgrading to Vista.
This makes me feel more positive towards Microsoft, since I feel that the upgrade 'trap' (?) happens to the best of software. The upgrade 'trap' of software is like 'death and taxes', or the cycle of the seasons: inevitable perhaps.
Tim
Hi Tim,
>>I will need to find the funds for updates to Moodle software (modules) that I am using, which will cost considerably more, a couple of times more, than upgrading to Vista.
Which third-party Moodle module updates are you afraid will cost you lots of money? Already, our school is helping you out by providing free-of-charge, new versions of the Lecture Feedback Module and Attendence Slip Module. We also have some other cool and free modules you might like. I use a little of my annual research money to keep things up to date and I get double or triple back when other people do the same with their third party modules. I figure one way to contribute to the Moodle community (besides donations) is to keep developing modules--forever. Look at it positively, rather than a "trap".
>>I will need to find the funds for updates to Moodle software (modules) that I am using, which will cost considerably more, a couple of times more, than upgrading to Vista.
Which third-party Moodle module updates are you afraid will cost you lots of money? Already, our school is helping you out by providing free-of-charge, new versions of the Lecture Feedback Module and Attendence Slip Module. We also have some other cool and free modules you might like. I use a little of my annual research money to keep things up to date and I get double or triple back when other people do the same with their third party modules. I figure one way to contribute to the Moodle community (besides donations) is to keep developing modules--forever. Look at it positively, rather than a "trap".
Dear Don
First of all, I would like to say publically, that I am extremely grateful for your provsion of the Lecture Feedback Module and the Attendance Slip Module. I think that the latter especially is a piece of genius, that deserves wide use and appreciation and... a medal. It is the module in which my colleagues show the greatest interest.
Sadly however, while I remain very grateful, I can not use either because I am stuck at 1.6.
The third party modules that I have in mind, that will cost me 'lots' (subjective of course) of money are those that my institution funded: the Moodle for Mobiles quiz module and the TUI (Test of Unconscious Identification) module, which are as far as I am aware at the 1.6 stage. There is a chance that the former has been upgraded, though not publically. The TUI module will cost a fair 1000 dollars to upgrade.
I have about 1500 dollars of research grant a year at my current university. (I used to have 8000 dollars at my previous private university, so I can appreciate that what is a lot to one person is not so much to another.)
Also, please note that in my post I put the word "trap" in quotation marks. I inherited the thread title. I don't think that "trap" is the right word. I think (as one of the respondents points out below) that upgrade paths are good and bad, or neither good nor bad, depending upon whether one wants the functionality provided by the upgrade.
For example, I was very pleased when Windows moved from the buggy blue-screen-of-death-plagued Windows 95/98 to the stable Windows 2000. Perhaps if I had been using Windows NT then I might not have been so pleased. I am not sure. But I was personally, pleased with the Windows 2000 upgrade.
Similarly, I was very pleased with the Moodle 1.6 upgrade which provides multiple encodings, including the Shift JIS encoding that made the Moodle for Mobiles module possible.
I am sure that there are many people that wanted Windows XP and Windows Vista for the functionality that they provide, and for the software that become compatible with their provision. The only software I have that is not Win2K, only XP and above, compatible is Avid Xpress, and while I don't use it myself, some people recommend it highly.
That is why I contradicted the post at the beginning of this thread, and put the word "trap" in quotation marks. I prefered to say that upgrades are inevitable, that they have their rewards and their drawbacks.
If I had the money I would like to upgrade to Windows Vista and to the latest version of Moodle, and to fund the upgrade of the modules mentioned above.
Tim
I feel Tim's pain. Maybe there cannot be any other way. As Tim, I don't think open source software means that there should be people working for free to upgrade every non-standard feature that has ever been built for Moodle. That being said, it is still a little sad (as many things in life for which there is no optimal solution) to see so many good and useful modules and functionalities fall into oblivion because there is no funding to keep them updated. What I still can't understand very well, though, is how it is determined that one module or functionality becomes standard, hence supported, and other doesn't. How is the degree of usefulness/popularity determined.
I've learned my lesson and I've decided that I won't spend the little money I can come up with funding the development of non-standard modules/features for Moodle. Unless you have guaranteed funding to maintain the module/functionality (or the knowledge and time to do it yourself) through the different Moodle versions, it is rather wasteful (although fun and interesting for a while) to throw money or effort into non-standard features for Moodle. I can see where Tim is coming from and as I said I can feel his pain
Josep M.
I've learned my lesson and I've decided that I won't spend the little money I can come up with funding the development of non-standard modules/features for Moodle. Unless you have guaranteed funding to maintain the module/functionality (or the knowledge and time to do it yourself) through the different Moodle versions, it is rather wasteful (although fun and interesting for a while) to throw money or effort into non-standard features for Moodle. I can see where Tim is coming from and as I said I can feel his pain
Josep M.
Joseph > What I still can't understand very well, though, is how it is determined that one module or functionality becomes standard, hence supported, and other doesn't.
That's a good question!
Joseph
In reply to Josep M. Fontana
Re: Blooming and Dying into the Moodle 1.7/1.8 Garden
by Don Hinkelman -
The development of modules in Moodle is like a garden. Some flourish and grow and some bloom and die. Nothing wrong with that. No pain in that. That is the organic factory of development that an open source movement is blessed with.
Why do some modules make it and others don't? Popularity. When a new module fits a need, people will download it, ask questions, try it and send in new requests. If those requests are answered, the momentum builds. Developing a new module is like a marriage--think of it as someone to do as a love of your whole life.
I have developed or promoted probably about ten modules--some are growing and some disappeared quite soon. Some were just modifications that a teacher in our school wanted. These get continually upgraded because that teacher cares about it and goes out and gets about US$500 each year to keep it up-to-date. I also started a very ambitious collection of five modules for project-based learning that needs tremendous amounts of thought, testing, and development. It is growing very slowly, because it is not popular. And it is not popular, not because of a poor concept, but because of a poor interface and workflow. Now we are working on that, in part, because we could find students teams of engineers and an enthusiastic programmer from Uzbekistan to help us. I cannot code a single line, but I love supervising these folks. I plan to keep upgrading, or rather completing rebuilding the module because I love this kind of teaching and think project-based learning will grow astronomically. The beauty of open source is nothing can stop me/us if we really believe in it.
Why do some modules make it and others don't? Popularity. When a new module fits a need, people will download it, ask questions, try it and send in new requests. If those requests are answered, the momentum builds. Developing a new module is like a marriage--think of it as someone to do as a love of your whole life.
I have developed or promoted probably about ten modules--some are growing and some disappeared quite soon. Some were just modifications that a teacher in our school wanted. These get continually upgraded because that teacher cares about it and goes out and gets about US$500 each year to keep it up-to-date. I also started a very ambitious collection of five modules for project-based learning that needs tremendous amounts of thought, testing, and development. It is growing very slowly, because it is not popular. And it is not popular, not because of a poor concept, but because of a poor interface and workflow. Now we are working on that, in part, because we could find students teams of engineers and an enthusiastic programmer from Uzbekistan to help us. I cannot code a single line, but I love supervising these folks. I plan to keep upgrading, or rather completing rebuilding the module because I love this kind of teaching and think project-based learning will grow astronomically. The beauty of open source is nothing can stop me/us if we really believe in it.
Thanks Josep
I missed your post. Thanks.
The way I think that I am going to proceed is...
With every upgrade of any software there are going to be times when one likes the upgrade, as I did with the UFT of Moodle 1.6, and the stability of Windows 2000, and times when one is not aware of or interested in the functionality, as I am not with roles in 1.7 or with whatever it is that Moodle 1.8 or windows XP or Vista does provided by an upgrade.
The time to upgrade is the time when you want whatever the upgrade does. Alas of course, this is going to vary between user to user, and more importantly between related software providers. By that I mean that there are some Windows related programs that I can't run on my Windows 2000 (that I do not need), and Moodle modules (provided by Don especially) that I do need but can't run on my Moodle 1.6.
I am really not sure of the benefits of post Windows 2000 Windows, so I will only upgrade when I really have to, but Moodle 1.9 with its new quiz engine (being coded by Jamie Pratt, I believe) does sound attractive. So I think that I will forgo the pleasures of Don's super software until 1.9 and then upgrade both my moodle and the software that I have funded at that time. I will have to hope that Don also sees the benefits of 1.9 and upgrades his software too. That seems likely, yeah.
An important issue is backwards compatability. It would be really nice if with each upgrade of any software, dependent software is usable because the new mother software allows backwards compatibility. A lot of windows 2000 software seems to work on XP. I am not sure why Moodle 1.7, or 1.8 or the new nacent 1.9 can not accept modules from 1.6 and below but I think that in theory modules written for 1.6 might have been, in a perfect(ly greed-allowing) world, compatible (while lacking in the new, roles etc, features) if backwards compatability had been built in. For the future, I live in hope.
Tim
It would be really nice if with each upgrade of any software, dependent software is usable because the new mother software allows backwards compatibility. A lot of windows 2000 software seems to work on XP. I am not sure why Moodle 1.7, or 1.8 or the new nacent 1.9 can not accept modules from 1.6 and below but I think that in theory modules written for 1.6 might have been, in a perfect(ly greed-allowing) world, compatible (while lacking in the new, roles etc, features) if backwards compatability had been built in.
I think the main reason behind this can be found here:
http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/stable_api_nonsense.html
(change 'linux kernel' and 'driver interface' by 'Moodle' and 'module interface' to place it in perspective. Of course there is no 1:1 relationship, but you get the picture).
Saludos. Iñaki.
The biggest difference is that all versions of Moodle are free. But alas if I want to stay up to date with Moodle bug fixes I will need to find the funds for updates to Moodle software (modules) that I am using, which will cost considerably more, a couple of times more, than upgrading to Vista.
How many people are using your Moodle site? In comparing these two, I guess it would be helpful to compare that, e.g. you'll have to pay to upgrade your non-standard modules/blocks on your Moodle site once, and then all you users will be upgraded, w/as if you were upgrading all of your users to Vista, you would have to pay for each license, and in many cases new hardware. For Vista, estimates range from $1000-$5000 per user for the upgrade cost. By contrast, this is similar to projects for upgrading from WebCT CE 4 to WebCT CE 6, and for the other Vista, better plan on 2x-3x times that.
It does raise a good point about about development. A standard measure is that the cost of development of any software is only 20% of the overall cost when maintenance and training is figured in. This is also why a sustainable business model is critical to any software development effort.
How many people are using your Moodle site? In comparing these two, I guess it would be helpful to compare that, e.g. you'll have to pay to upgrade your non-standard modules/blocks on your Moodle site once, and then all you users will be upgraded, w/as if you were upgrading all of your users to Vista, you would have to pay for each license, and in many cases new hardware. For Vista, estimates range from $1000-$5000 per user for the upgrade cost. By contrast, this is similar to projects for upgrading from WebCT CE 4 to WebCT CE 6, and for the other Vista, better plan on 2x-3x times that.
It does raise a good point about about development. A standard measure is that the cost of development of any software is only 20% of the overall cost when maintenance and training is figured in. This is also why a sustainable business model is critical to any software development effort.
Dear Michael
> How many people are using your Moodle site?
I run a campus wide English conversation course with about 600 students per year, and teach about 300 students per year in my own courses. I use Moodle for all of these. Occasionally I host other teachers classes, so I guess about 1500 students use my moodle installation per year at the present time.
> you'll have to pay to upgrade your non-standard modules/blocks
> on your Moodle site once
I estimate that upgrading the modules that I need to 1.7 would be about 2000 dollars (assuming that moodle for mobiles quiz costs the same as TUI to upgrade). Please don't mention 1.8 or 1.9 because my ulcer is playing up
> if you were upgrading all of your users to Vista, you would
> have to pay for each license, and in many cases new hardware.
> For Vista, estimates range from $1000-$5000 per user for the
> upgrade cost.
Thus if I had to pay for all the Vista upgrades for my students it would cost, 1,500 times $1000-$5000. Or between 1,500,000 and 4,500,000 dollars! And I have no idea how much it costs to upgrade WebCT. Perhaps about the same.
2000 dollars is a drop in the ocean compared to this!
> It does raise a good point about about development. A standard
> measure is that the cost of development of any software is only
> 20% of the overall cost when maintenance and training is figured > in.
BTW Joel on Software blog said of software development:
25 calories are spent on customer service
55 calories are spent on debugging, beta testing, and minor tweaks
8 calories are spent on marketing, including the Fog Creek website
5 calories are spent reading college kids' resumes and interviewing said college kids
5 calories are spent on code that never ships, such as the online demo and the online store
Tim
If you consider Moodle (or anything else in the IT world) in terms of a chain, eg hardware - operating system - Apache/PHP - Moodle - modules, then an upgrade of any link in the chain runs the risk of having to upgrade something else to the left of it to enable the upgrade and of causing backward-compatibility problems with something to the right of it.
Having acknowledged that, you have to ask yourself whether the upgrade you want is worth the problems it's going to cause. In my case a planned upgrade to Moodle 1.7 later this year will mean upgrading my Apache etc first, but the upgrade is worth it. In your case upgrading Moodle so you can have the benefit of new module A is going to break non-standard module B, so is A worth having to pay to have B re-written?
In the case of Vista, is the additional functionality of Vista worth the hassle of your existing things (eg webcams, PDA's, etc) stopping working and having to be upgraded, and the possibility of having to upgrade your hardware to cope with a resource-hungry OS? Given that the additional functionality of Vista seems to be marginal, I'd suggest that in most cases the answer to this one is 'No'. The main reason for upgrading to Vista at the moment seems to be because it looks different, it's new, and it has bouncy icons. Woohoo! In terms of actually doing the job it's supposed to do it seems less reliable and less useable than XP. At least by the time they stop supporting XP they might have got Vista working properly.
One can also look at the motivation behind upgrades. In the case of Moodle, which is Open Source, if something is upgraded it's in an attempt to make it better for the users. In the case of Vista, it's an attempt to take £200 off you for something you probably don't need. For this reason I don't regard a Moodle upgrade as a trap, but I do regard Windows OSX - sorry, Vista - as a trap.
Dear Chris
I agree entirely with your fist three paragraphs.
I disagree a little with your final paragraph regarding the degree of commercial motivations of each. While Don's sharing of the Attendance Slip and Lecture Feedback modules results in no financial reward for Don, the upgrade from Moodle 1.6 to Moodle 1.7 for instance was not similarly volunteeristic, or non-commercially motivated. It was motivated at least in part financially, and by chance funded in part by Microsoft.
Open Source is a great business model. I don't think that it is simply a bunch of people helping each other and programming into the long hours for the sake of human happiness, and I don't fault it for not being so. The financial motivations of Moodle.com and Microsoft, and the way this financial motivation effects the users are different in some ways, but very similar in others. I must admit that I was unaware of this fact in the past. It is interesting that the commercial nature of open source software is not so immediately apparent, as if, contra "M$", the "$" in Moodle is silent.
This does not change the fact that 'M$oodle' is great software.
Tim
>>the upgrade from Moodle 1.6 to Moodle 1.7 for instance was not similarly volunteeristic, or non-commercially motivated. It was motivated at least in part financially, and by chance funded in part by Microsoft.
Sorry, Tim, this is incorrect. Microsoft funded a very minor portion of some database compability issue with their servers--nothing to do with the huge changes in 1.7. The main new feature in version 1.7 was Roles. Flexible roles have been a constant request for over 2-3 years by schools wanting to include parents, teachers wanting to delegate responsibilities to TAs, and students who want to take charge of activities. For years, I have heard requests to allow forums to have continual editing by posters--1.7 delivered that capability.
Microsoft had nothing to do with roles. Their funding of Moodle HQ to make Moodle compatible with their databases was simply for them to keep their server customers from fleeing. Actually, I wish Microsoft would give a ton of their money to Moodle. It could keep the HQ bugfixers working full stream.
But these gripes with 1.7 are old news. We are now well past 1.7, with a new 1.9 and hopefully the question engine that we have been dreaming of. I cannot tell you how many problems this will solve for me and you. Also 1.8 brought to us flexible profile fields--which for us Japanese users, gives us the ability to add multiple names (kanji, kana, roman), nicknames, and student ID sorting.
I am also disappointed that you singled me out as a volunteeristic contributor. Take a look at the Modules and Plugins page--there are over one hundred others who are contributing. Just like you have been doing!
Sorry, Tim, this is incorrect. Microsoft funded a very minor portion of some database compability issue with their servers--nothing to do with the huge changes in 1.7. The main new feature in version 1.7 was Roles. Flexible roles have been a constant request for over 2-3 years by schools wanting to include parents, teachers wanting to delegate responsibilities to TAs, and students who want to take charge of activities. For years, I have heard requests to allow forums to have continual editing by posters--1.7 delivered that capability.
Microsoft had nothing to do with roles. Their funding of Moodle HQ to make Moodle compatible with their databases was simply for them to keep their server customers from fleeing. Actually, I wish Microsoft would give a ton of their money to Moodle. It could keep the HQ bugfixers working full stream.
But these gripes with 1.7 are old news. We are now well past 1.7, with a new 1.9 and hopefully the question engine that we have been dreaming of. I cannot tell you how many problems this will solve for me and you. Also 1.8 brought to us flexible profile fields--which for us Japanese users, gives us the ability to add multiple names (kanji, kana, roman), nicknames, and student ID sorting.
I am also disappointed that you singled me out as a volunteeristic contributor. Take a look at the Modules and Plugins page--there are over one hundred others who are contributing. Just like you have been doing!
Dear Don
So it is correct to say that Microsoft funded "a minor portion", but not a "part" of the 1.6 to 1.7 upgrade? While I am not sure where the line this line is drawn, I am sorry if I have misrepresented the situation.
My overall point is that Moodle is also in significant part (again the word part, sorry. I will give a more concrete indicator below.), a commercial enterprise, and that this commercial side of Moodle results in outcomes that are different to that which might be expected of a non profit, charity or cooperative. (A non-profit, cooperative might acheive lesser results. Lets leave that aside.)
The case in point is the upgrade from 1.6 to 17 and above. You may be right in seeing this as something that arose from collective demand. I tried to understand and empathise with that demand, which I don't see as being all that great, but failed.
I think that there may have been also a signifcant commercial motive behind the move between 1.6 and 1.7. I think that a Moodle.com representative said something to that effect somewhere on the forums but I may be mistaken.
I am not sure why you're dissappointed to be used an example of the volunteerism at Moodle, but thanks for pointing out the modules and plugins page. On a brief survey of the first three pages of the plugin repository, it seems that 40% of the plugins contributed by volunteers remain at the 1.6 or below level (a further 10% are at an unknown stage).
Can any conclusion be drawn from this? Not quickly. But it suggests to me that something is commercial in Moodleland. This should be no secret, and it is okay.
Tim
Can any conclusion be drawn from this? Not quickly. But it suggests to me that something is commercial in Moodleland. This should be no secret, and it is okay.
Dear Timothy, with all due respect, I think what you are suggesting is wrong. Of course there is something commercial in Moodleland. As far as I know, it's always been. But IMHO the reason most contrib modules are at 1.6 or below has little (or nothing to do) with the commercial part of Moodle and a lot with the user base (and developers) of those modules.
If a given modules is a one-shot effort and there is no incentive for the module developer(s) to upgrade it to newer versions, the it will stagnate. What are the main reasons for a developer to make that effort? Money certainly is, internal need is another one (we are maintaning a couple of modifications because we need them internally and they are not part of standard Moodle), community recognition[1] is another (that's why I developed some of the Active Directory enhancements or the password policy support, which we don't use here at all ) and so on.
If the module is useful (as in 'I really need it', not as in 'nice to have, but I could do without it'), then the users will try to make the developer maintain/upgrade the module. Just find the main incentive of the developer and push it
Of course, the fast pace of Moodle development in the last years doesn't help this situation. But if someone _really_ wants their module into the standard Moodle distribution, they better follow some of the guidelines expressed here:
http://docs.moodle.org/en/Development:Working_with_the_Community
Discussing the module features with the core developers _before_ you start developing it surely helps a lot too. Of course this doesn't guarantee anything. (have a look at the DFwiki team, though I'd say their case is different: they are trying to replace a big chunk of code and have to be able to upgrade all of the existing wiki contents, which is not easy).
Of course I could be completely wrong. But this have been my experience in several free/open source software projects.
Saludos. Iñaki.
[1] In the form of a beer in the next Moot we meet for example
How are you defining 'commercial'?
If for instance an educational institution pays Moodle.com to develop features, is that 'commercial' or 'volunteer'? If an educational institution pays their own developers to develop features, what is that? Does it matter if the educational institution is private, non-profit, private for profit, etc?
If for instance an educational institution pays Moodle.com to develop features, is that 'commercial' or 'volunteer'? If an educational institution pays their own developers to develop features, what is that? Does it matter if the educational institution is private, non-profit, private for profit, etc?
> How are you defining 'commercial'?
I have no clear definition. If you do please let me know. However, the following seem commercial to me: the presence of capital gain on investment and the absense of transparent accounting (i.e. the wages of executives are not dislcosed).
Tim
Gain is often hard to measure, however I expect few would use Moodle if they saw no gain. Perhaps the gain is in your student's learning, or in saving you time on administrative tasks that frees you to do more teaching, or to reach students who may not be able to leave their other responsibilities and physically travel to your classroom. Presumably there is some gain involved. Sadly, there is often no direct measure of the time dedicated teachers spend in learning to use new technology, no measure of the effect this work has on their student's learning.
As I understand it, the primary driver of the pace of the 1.6-1.7-1.8 upgrades has been the Open University of the UK, who's gain is in being able to reach their students more effectively. I don't think much happened in this upgrade path that was not already on Moodle's roadmap, but there was a gain for Martin in that he was able to keep his team at Moodle.com, together, working on Moodle. This is good, IMO, as it takes ~3-6months to bring someone from expert PHP/MySQl programmer to expert Moodle programmer, for the future quality of the software it is essential to find enough resources to keep professional, experienced programmers working on the core code.
As I understand it, the primary driver of the pace of the 1.6-1.7-1.8 upgrades has been the Open University of the UK, who's gain is in being able to reach their students more effectively. I don't think much happened in this upgrade path that was not already on Moodle's roadmap, but there was a gain for Martin in that he was able to keep his team at Moodle.com, together, working on Moodle. This is good, IMO, as it takes ~3-6months to bring someone from expert PHP/MySQl programmer to expert Moodle programmer, for the future quality of the software it is essential to find enough resources to keep professional, experienced programmers working on the core code.
Moodle has always been commercial (donations are commercial) and always been open source. Donations affect upgrades too, because sometimes donations are tied to certain feature requests. In 2003, Tim Grose and I contributed $1300 to add the mp3 filter and player for our placement testing.
60% of modules at 1.7 is a phenomenal number. I would have expected far fewer. As you know, the Modules and Plugins database has little or no pruning of old, unsupported modules and no filtering/approval of people adding new modules, so we can expect to see many older modules or one-try attempts there.
A dozen animal species go extinct every day here on Earth, and I would expect more than 50% of modules to go extinct each year. That is common in closed source enterprises as well. Many projects get started and abandonned.
I was disappointed simply because your kind statement of my school's commercial-volunteerism made it seem like we were one of few examples of sharing. However, as Inaki and others say, thousands of people are contributing to Moodle in a rainbow of semi-volunteer, semi-commercial, delightfully mashed-up ways. I promise a beer to each one of you!
Now we are working on supporting the new question engine in 1.9. Have you started?
60% of modules at 1.7 is a phenomenal number. I would have expected far fewer. As you know, the Modules and Plugins database has little or no pruning of old, unsupported modules and no filtering/approval of people adding new modules, so we can expect to see many older modules or one-try attempts there.
A dozen animal species go extinct every day here on Earth, and I would expect more than 50% of modules to go extinct each year. That is common in closed source enterprises as well. Many projects get started and abandonned.
I was disappointed simply because your kind statement of my school's commercial-volunteerism made it seem like we were one of few examples of sharing. However, as Inaki and others say, thousands of people are contributing to Moodle in a rainbow of semi-volunteer, semi-commercial, delightfully mashed-up ways. I promise a beer to each one of you!
Now we are working on supporting the new question engine in 1.9. Have you started?
...I would expect more than 50% of modules to go extinct each year. That is common in closed source enterprises as well. Many projects get started and abandonned.
You make some good points, but in my opinion, the statement above is not one of them. I know of no closed source, or open source, system that could be sustained with 50% of its modules going extinct each year...with the possible exception of Moodle (I guess 
), I can't think of a single other example...can you provide one?
I'm currently developing a presentation to deliver at an educational leadership conference in Beijing this August on Open Source Software and this would be a very interesting topic to include in that presentation if you can point me to some support for that assertion.
In reply to Steve Hyndman
Re: Falling into the Moodle 1.3/1/4/1.5/1.6/1.7/1.8 garden?
by Don Hinkelman -
>>I know of no closed source, or open source, system that could be sustained with 50% of its modules going extinct each year...
Hi Steve,
Sorry for being imprecise. Actually, all firms in the world have 51.7% of their work abandonned within a year. Of course, I am making that up. But the point is that a lot, and possibly a majority of any enterprise's projects, whether code, machines or lesson plans can be expected to be useless--within five years or as little as a year in a high-paced innovation centre. Actually, it is a sign of a good enterprise if a majority of its projects go belly up. This shows that innovation and risk-taking is allowed and rewarded, and intraprenuers or entreprenuers will keep their jobs if their projects fail.
This concept came from my studies of innovation in corporate firms and also some readings about Sourceforge. Sorry I don't have any links to point to, so feel free to disregard what I say. Some examples:
3M: As I recall, they started the term "skunkworks", where the firm allowed project managers to have discretionary funds to make any new product they saw fit. I believe they were happy if as little as 10% of the products actually succeeded to be finally brought to market.
Microsoft: The Zune and countless other attempts to market hardware will probably amount to more than a 50% failure rate (oops, you caught me with my axe to grind
). Not fair, I suppose I shouldn't pick on them all the time.
Apple: I have read a lot about their starts and stops with OSs in the 90s--Rhapsody and so on. My guess is that they start up as many projects that succeed as fail.
Sourceforge: I remember hearing an abandonment rate of open source projects that was surprisingly high. I think the book about open source, Cathedral and the Bazaar, would have some insights on this.
My main point is that high abandonment rates are good! They signify an open, barrier-free environment to start projects. My guess is that Blackboard does not allow experimental module-making in their culture, unless paid handsomely to do that custom module by a client, or unless they conduct a marketing survey. And never, ever by God-forbid, a *user*. This high-overhead mode of innovation is not the modus operandi of the open source world.
Therefore, I would see higher attempts to make modules and thus a high abandonment of modules in Moodle as a good thing. I know one guy in Japan who has personnally made 8 Moodle modules and never published them publicly (yet) on moodle.org. He will likely give up on half after testing them with students and getting bugs worked out--focusing on the compelling ones that he can sustain over time. When I learned how to hire low cost programming talent or get volunteers involved, I was able to make about 10 new Moodle modules or plugins in the period of 2005-2007. Of these, I am actively working on 2 now. But before 2005, I never attempted a single one. Because I had a 0% failure rate before 2005, does that mean it is better than my current 80% abandonment rate?
Hi Steve,
Sorry for being imprecise. Actually, all firms in the world have 51.7% of their work abandonned within a year.
This concept came from my studies of innovation in corporate firms and also some readings about Sourceforge. Sorry I don't have any links to point to, so feel free to disregard what I say. Some examples:
3M: As I recall, they started the term "skunkworks", where the firm allowed project managers to have discretionary funds to make any new product they saw fit. I believe they were happy if as little as 10% of the products actually succeeded to be finally brought to market.
Microsoft: The Zune and countless other attempts to market hardware will probably amount to more than a 50% failure rate (oops, you caught me with my axe to grind
). Not fair, I suppose I shouldn't pick on them all the time.Apple: I have read a lot about their starts and stops with OSs in the 90s--Rhapsody and so on. My guess is that they start up as many projects that succeed as fail.
Sourceforge: I remember hearing an abandonment rate of open source projects that was surprisingly high. I think the book about open source, Cathedral and the Bazaar, would have some insights on this.
My main point is that high abandonment rates are good! They signify an open, barrier-free environment to start projects. My guess is that Blackboard does not allow experimental module-making in their culture, unless paid handsomely to do that custom module by a client, or unless they conduct a marketing survey. And never, ever by God-forbid, a *user*. This high-overhead mode of innovation is not the modus operandi of the open source world.
Therefore, I would see higher attempts to make modules and thus a high abandonment of modules in Moodle as a good thing. I know one guy in Japan who has personnally made 8 Moodle modules and never published them publicly (yet) on moodle.org. He will likely give up on half after testing them with students and getting bugs worked out--focusing on the compelling ones that he can sustain over time. When I learned how to hire low cost programming talent or get volunteers involved, I was able to make about 10 new Moodle modules or plugins in the period of 2005-2007. Of these, I am actively working on 2 now. But before 2005, I never attempted a single one. Because I had a 0% failure rate before 2005, does that mean it is better than my current 80% abandonment rate?
In reply to Don Hinkelman
Re: Falling into the Moodle 1.3/1/4/1.5/1.6/1.7/1.8 garden?
by Michael Penney -
My guess is that Blackboard does not allow experimental module-making in their culture,
Ahh, but they do seem to be abandoning the CE6-Vista codebase, which represents a very high investment of person-months, perhaps higher than their BB7 codebase. Now also look at Prometheus, CourseInfo, D2L, etc. In their case, BB has made a good business so far in causing codebases to become abandoned.
Ahh, but they do seem to be abandoning the CE6-Vista codebase, which represents a very high investment of person-months, perhaps higher than their BB7 codebase. Now also look at Prometheus, CourseInfo, D2L, etc. In their case, BB has made a good business so far in causing codebases to become abandoned
In reply to Don Hinkelman
Re: Falling into the Moodle 1.3/1/4/1.5/1.6/1.7/1.8 garden?
by Phil Rand -
By the way, the Lockheed Skunk Works was founded in 1943 to design and build the early (first?) American jet aircraft, the XP-80. They later did the U2, SR71, F117, and many other breakthough airplanes.
I'm second guessing Don here, but I suspect he's talking about third-party modules, not core ones. So IMHO sustainability of the project/product is not at risk.
Saludos. Iñaki.
Saludos. Iñaki.
>> I'm second guessing Don here, but I suspect he's talking about third-party modules, not core ones.
Yes, exactly. The problem Tim and I are discussing is funding the upgrades and costs of the third party modules we need as well as keeping up with the core upgrades. I see a gradual process of third party code getting integrated into standard code as it proves to be useful and popular. Along the way, less-than-useful modules and plug-ins will fall by the wayside and provide fertilizer for the "garden".
Maybe Steve was referring to core modules, so I apologize for the confusion.
P.S. I just noticed another open source LMS, Dokeos, just released their version 1.8.2. They have an economic model with a free source code version and a paid professional version with lots of services--running from 1000-5000 euro.
Yes, exactly. The problem Tim and I are discussing is funding the upgrades and costs of the third party modules we need as well as keeping up with the core upgrades. I see a gradual process of third party code getting integrated into standard code as it proves to be useful and popular. Along the way, less-than-useful modules and plug-ins will fall by the wayside and provide fertilizer for the "garden".
Maybe Steve was referring to core modules, so I apologize for the confusion.
P.S. I just noticed another open source LMS, Dokeos, just released their version 1.8.2. They have an economic model with a free source code version and a paid professional version with lots of services--running from 1000-5000 euro.
For those wondering about the "recently unsupported modules" in Moodle: Dokeos has the same problem, see http://www.dokeos.com/extensions/index.php?section=tools for example. There is not a lot of modules there, and many of those are for 1.6 version or in the process of "refactoring for 1.6".
Postnuke is a good example, in the upgrades between the .71 series and the .75 series (where an entire new theming/templating system was introduced, along with a security review and overhall), large numbers of pre-75 modules stopped working. I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but I also know that large numbers of modules stopped working in the recent Drupal upgrade between the 4 series and the 5 series.
Certainly Gallery 1.5x to Gallery2 is another good example, where major code refactoring meant that large numbers of 1.5 modules stopped working in 2.
Note that these were punctuated extinction events, other years may be much less hard on the ecosystem. Having moved from hacking DNA to hacking lingo, html, and then PHP back in the 90s, I find the similarities between biology and software quite interesting (note for instance that Sakai is an attempt to create a new species by intelligent design
).
Certainly Gallery 1.5x to Gallery2 is another good example, where major code refactoring meant that large numbers of 1.5 modules stopped working in 2.
Note that these were punctuated extinction events, other years may be much less hard on the ecosystem. Having moved from hacking DNA to hacking lingo, html, and then PHP back in the 90s, I find the similarities between biology and software quite interesting (note for instance that Sakai is an attempt to create a new species by intelligent design
).