This week was the first time I have seen someone selling Mahara in action. Indeed it is the first time I have seen a Mahara site. Well of course I have to recognise the benefits of being able to link into Moodle, which is being used by many institutions in the UK but nobody can claim that it looks great.
Anyway here is the sales pitch. Can you really thrust proprietary software when it is quite possible that compnay's owning that software will be taken over, the implication being that of course that software will disappear, leaving the learning provider high and try. Instead you can have access to open source software which you can be assured will be always be there. No mention what state that software will be in nor how stable it is you can just have the reassurance it will be there.
You can of course if you wish pay a company like the one the salesperson was representing to help implement the software and of course if you need any other services like hosting and support we will of course be happy to oblige albeit at a fee.
Seems that institutions will swopping the so called dependence on a company where there is some guarantees on the security and availability of software with a 'relationship' with another company that will be using software over which there is ultimately little control apart from the fact you know it is 'out there' which apparently better...still struggling to see how.
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