Blackboard's Foray into OSS

The for-profit, course management system (CMS), Blackboard, is trying to attract the attention of institutions that prefer an open source approach. They're doing so by creating plug-ins (some of which are referred to as "Building Blocks") for systems such as Sakai. Similar connectors are in the works for Moodle as well.

While Blackboard is the top dog among CMSs in higher education, there is a growing number of individuals and developers moving toward the open source approach. Blackboard obviously recognizes this and wants to make sure they are in on the action. But will this mean the end of open source CMSs? Or, alternatively, will a for-profit become more open?

More on these Blackboard partnerships can be found here.