Imitation as flattery, perhaps, but where's our cut?

With its $81 million contract, IBM and its outsourced subcontractors have (in fits and starts) put together a shiny new data warehousing and knowledge management suite, called ARIS.   Admittedly, some portion of that fee has been put to good use in an elegantly designed GUI and difficult-to-engineer synchronization with multiple (often archaic) student data systems, however as I discovered, it seems Open Planner has inadvertantly served as a (time and money saving) proof-of-concept for a major portion of this commercial software development effort.

Several months ago, about mid-way through my first ARIS training session, I began poking around the highly-touted "Connect" portion of the website and was hit by a heart-stopping, $81 million realization.  The content management system that structures the curriculum-sharing section of the ARIS community is literally identical to Open Planner.  Same FREE open source CMS (Drupal). Same modules (Organic Groups, taxonomy access, etc.) same configuration, same concept...argh.

There are times when one might enjoy such flattery.  In looking around my tiny apartment and meagre public educator's bank account, I have to admit I might have preferred a well-paid position on their development team.   Nevertheless, I suppose the power of of knowledge sharing has been proven yet again!

Congratulations taxpayers!  Open Planner has been repackaged and sold to the NYCDDOE for a mint. 

What is exciting about this development is that we now have the country's single largest school system invested in the future viability of Drupal, and in the development and maintenance of the same modules Open Planner depends upon.  This is also a major vote of confidence in the structural model that Open Planner pioneered, and we are more than happy to take unpaid credit for having done so.