Re: TILT fork?

[Brent Simpson]

TILT would still be copyright the University of Texas but the TILT Open 
Content License allows people to create any kind of modifications they 
like and redistribute if they like. My concern is that there are a lot 
of modifications that people would like, but it doesn't appear that 
there are any resources available through the University of Texas to be 
able to report, or accomodate an open source project of this kind. This 
would require something like Eduforge (http://eduforge.org) which has 
the kinds of tools that developers of open source projects need: 
communication tools, CVS, Wikis, etc.

Now this project is unique in that it's focus is primarily a body of 
content not programming routines or source code. I think that Eduforge 
could function quite well for content as well; we could upload the 
content into the Wiki and engage the community to make changes and 
update content this way. There would be some core "developers" that 
would consist of programmers for the interactions, installation, 
quizzes, etc... and content experts who would advise and peer review the 
TILT content on the Wiki for inclusion in new releases.

Perhaps I should also comment on who "owns" TILT; the University of 
Texas would still maintain the Copyright of TILT and be able to release 
a TILT package on their own that either included the mods made by the 
forked TILT community or not. Or, they could back this idea and use 
something like Eduforge to do it themselves, contribute, etc. As one of 
the original developers of TILT (and yes, I wrote most of that crappy 
code ... completely self taught this was the first thing I ever 
programmed) and the instigator of TILT being covered by an Open License 
I have always felt that the spirit of releasing the content in this 
fashion was never really realized. There are at my last count, over 85 
institutions that have a modified or not copy of TILT running; but has 
the TILT team in UT Austin ever merged any code or content from these 
institutions back into TILT. Not that I know of. Now, this is not a 
criticism of the Austin people; there are no original developers left 
working there and just maintaining TILT is quite a job. They were left 
with a project that if I had of had more foresight perhaps I would have 
left with more mechanisms in place to be able to solicit and merge 
changes, but that time is now here. If TILT is still a useful tool then 
I think it's worth considering how to quickly get it up to speed with 
the changing times.

comments....
brent simpson.

Arthur Christy wrote:
Has anybody talked with the owner yet?  It seems like everybody wants to do
something with somebody else's program.  It may not be open license, but I
would think there is still a copyright.
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ben Blah
Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2004 10:49 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: TILT fork?
Bill,
	I was not aware of the New York State regulations for accessibility.
Do 
you have any resources available that could act as guidelines for a possible

new version.
Ben
>From: "Drew, Bill" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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>This would be the naswer to my concerns about it being so Texas 
specific.  Moving it to EDUFORGE is an excellent idea.  I had stopped any of

my own work on TILT hoping it might be developed along more generic lines.  
There is much that could be improved including making it accessable to all 
users including the blind.  As it stands now I can't use it because it 
violates New York State regulations on accessability.  I need to rpovide 
alternative conent to the animations and graphics that is equal in quality 
and quantity of information.
>
>Bill Drew
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]

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