This project tries to combine two orthogonal areas. One is more straightforward and easier to understand (or even accept) than the other. Learning is the first one. The other one at first glance seems much more fuzzy, complicated and destined to fail then the first one and is much harder to put into a single word. The shortest description might be Open Enterprise. The term is based on another by now very famous one, open source.

Michael Hasenstein – a.k.a Mörre Noseshine

This may sound a little overblown and silly to talk about larger history here, but... oh well, let's just get started anyway ;-) Nothing I say is new to anyone anyway, I just want to create a context to be better able to explain what this project is about.

Over the centuries there have been several developments that accelerated human development significantly. Steam and industrialization is an example, and so are computers and now the Internet. I believe one of the next "big great things" is going to be the field of education.

The reason: I think the current system is pretty bad. Education is where industry was in the beginning of the 19th century.

I don't feel qualified or even have the desire to tackle the entire huge field of education. I merely decided I would like to do something within it.

In the past years I often had to learn new things and I used a lot of instruction materials. One of my most memorable experiences was when I learned for the written test for the Private Pilot exam. A company named Flight-Tech send me a demo tape of their audio cassette course, and I bought it. I mention them by name and URL because I loved their product unconditionally. I never had contact with them after buying the course in 1998, and I sure don't get paid to mention them here. Nothing special here it seems, only that I had wanted a video course and not an audio course because I thought a video course would be much better – after all, it is audio and video! However, the course was a revelation. It was great! I learned all those many, many things one has to learn if one wants to become a pilot easily - and without any significant (felt) effort. Just listening to the tape e.g. during a walk was enough. I passed with 100%. I tell this story because I am pretty sure this is what first set me on the course that by now has produced this website. I saw how great-quality learning material can make learning a breeze!

Earlier and later I saw how the wrong material can have the exact opposite effect. No need to elaborate on this fact, I am sure everyone who reads these lines has had their own experiences with bad, no-fun, boring learning aids.

There are of course many aspects to this, many more than I want to mention here (or that I'm even aware of). For example, of course a great (human) teacher is best, but there simply are not enough of them. So maybe great teachers should instead produce teaching materials, might be one conclusion? Another aspect is that every single person is a different (learning) type. This has to do with the way our brain develops, especially during the first few months, and then again during puberty. Some people who seem to be very bad learners would probably look very different if a method would be used that fits their brain's learning type!

Another important experience was the most expensive book I ever bought (at a time when a Euro only bought 0.86 US-$ – and I mostly earned Euros), in order to learn about the US legal system: Managers and the Legal Environment. After reading this book I thought to myself that this must be the limit of what can be done with a book. It could not get significantly better. Organization, coloring, texts, examples, etc. were as good as it could possibly could get – in a book. Teaching this (for most people very boring) topic could be improved only by having a good (human) teacher – or by using a computer based training of an at least equal level of quality.

The last part of the last sentence is the key: By far most computer based training I saw and still see was and is on a much lower level! Even such highly praised, expensive and indeed state-of-the-art products like RosettaStone language courses, of which I tried two (Chinese and Russian), are very boring and hardly very motivating. Whenever I used this or any language learning product I had trouble not falling asleep after a while!

Obviously, I am not the first one with these ideas. Nethertheless, you may have noticed that even today compared to the amount of new books hardly any multimedia, computer based content is produced! Sure, there are hundreds of thousand of useless videos on new "hot" websites. For me the word "content" has a meaning different from "anything", so I don't count those "accidental multimedia material". I am also not interested in pure entertainment. Learning and entertainment go well together, but entertainment without learning is the only thing we already get plenty of.

Why is there so little computer based learning material, compared to books, even when looking at currently produced material? Also, have you noticed there is no "Microsoft" for such products? Computer learning products are produced by all kinds of small(er) companies. Only a few special areas like basic math for school children and language learning have a significant number of products to show. Apparently for producing learning products no one has found any mass-production productivity-raising and cost-reducing methods. Economies of scale are nowhere in sight.

What I want this project to be(come) is a community-based and community-owned platform for shared development of quality learning content. For reasons I mention at least in part in the section on open source I do not wish to create a traditional firm (something I already tried successfully – on a very small scale, I helped start and still own half of a small business). Instead, I want to create an open enterprise( a term I explain in another section).

What does Open Source have to do with all of this?

Having a monolithic Flash-based course package does not lend itself to a community-based approach. Also, Flash itself is not a great tool for this kind of development. However, right now Flash is the only viable option for cross-platform worldwide distributed web-based multimedia content.

So how can we create something that's better suited for the open source way of development?

I would like to have a setup that is architecture independent. We have two parts: For one, we (are going to?) have a large library of (course) components. Those components are pictures, text, audio, video, small Flash, Java, etc. components (demos, interactive tests, etc.), and the like.

These are parts of courses, but how do we get to a full course?

The other part, which connects all components and adds "glue" that makes out a full multimedia course about some subject is a behavior description. This description - stored as XML - describes which component (e.g. a picture) is displayed when, where and how. It might say (described in human language)

time 0m 0.000s:  play audio ###
time 0m 5.300s:  display picture ###, fade-in effect, @x,y,width,height
time 0m 21.000s: ...
        

Displaying the course is a player software. Platform and language don't matter, as long as it is able to download all components referenced in the XML behavior file and play/display them according to the instructions in that file.

This sounds a little like the already existing SMIL language, also XML, but in the end SMIL is made for different purposes.

So we would have a great base for an open source style platform: sharing is easy because of the many small components, low entry barriers because of the small components, no special software requirements to participate, courses are very easy to change or add to by others because they are nothing but a text (XML) description of the course flow.

It is also possible to simply use HTML to tie components together for a more static course, that may include some multimedia components.

One of the things that are supposed to set this project apart from others is ownership. Anyone can determine the direction this project is going and where income is going. This by itself is of course no news at all in the age of Open Source software.

The idea is that the entire platform, i.e. website, infrastructure, name, logo etc. is owned by an organization owned by all contributors/members/participants.

Right now we've seen "Web 2.0" in action: a small number of people and some venture capitalists own everything. I'm not against this method at all – capitalism works! Google, Flickr etc. DO add value. The total of a Google or a Flickr is much, much more than the sum of the individual contributions.

However, I would like to try something else. When open source got successful most people thought it communism, and said it would never get into the enterprise, that it couldn't work on a large scale, etc. Well, it did. But: I always thought it strange when people insisted on leaving money out of the question of open source. Right now making money is left to traditional organizations, hierarchical firms owned by capitalists. As I said, that's okay and right, but I also think extending the open source model to include making money together should work, too!

There is a lot more to say - after all, general discussions always are the longest ones, but for here and now let me just say I would like to build a community around building multimedia learning content (and more, e.g. online-based support and live teaching), but do not want to build a venture-capital based business owned by the investors and me. Instead the platform shall be owned by all those who contribute or participate in any way! There are, of course, very good reasons for this different from "I have socialist illusions". I'm an egoist, I like Adam Smith, but I also believe what people (incuding myself) want is something different from "pure nature and aggression". Sure, that works - but what does "it works" really mean in the universe? Nothing but "the system – but not necessarily the individuals! – continue to exist.

So let's take the by now well-tested principles of the open source community, but extend them beyond engineering to include the whole "value-chain"!

We want to make – and distribute! – money! Starting from the open source idea, read what I think should be the next step, and why this is more capitalist than current corporations.

What already exists: There are two kinds of websites and projects where users contribute their time and effort. One kind are the complete volunteer projects, and the other kind are companies making money by aggregating many small contributions. In both cases the many contributing individuals get nothing.

I believe the world could use another kind. I liked the original open source idea from the start – but always thought it tackles only less than half of the problem, because it only solves production. So I thought about how this idea could be extended.

The problem I have always had with this idea was how could it work if such a project was indeed successful? Who pays those people for their work? Considering that a truly successful project is one where there are people willing to pay for the result, how can open source developers be compensated?

How does mentioning open source and money go together? Some people seem to have difficulty with this notion because there is this word "free". But open source projects are pure capitalism! Those projects compete on a very tough market with tough rules. You cannot become a successful project unless you win in this market, and unless you work truly hard. There is no protection given to you from other projects by patents, laws or anything, you have to win based on your own merits. In any large so-called "capitalist" corporation it is easy to get paid without doing anything or much for many people in those firms. I know, I worked at (but not always for) many large corporations, and everyone knows Dilbert and that the cartoons are based on reality. The fact many working people are stressed is NOT a sign that the above is untrue.
If you want to participate in an open source project it is not possible to hide, at least not for long. If you fail to deliver you are exposed quickly. If you deliver you are promoted. Titles, where you studied, whom you know count for nothing, you have to truly work if you want to make yourself a name. Also, you have to decide for yourself what is worth doing, there is no boss who assigns you to doomed useless projects. I know open source has politics too, but that is the normal human-human interaction.

Unfortunately this overall very successful model failed closing the circle. It only organizes the production process, but the rest of what is necessary to make a successful organism is left to the "old economy". Organizing the process of actually making a living is left to normal companies. Very few can make a living directly off of open source development, and if, it depends on great individual skills and some luck. There is no organized process "normal" people could join. They all have to go into the above mentioned corporations.

Participants in the project can be individuals or organizations (firms). Letexa is supposed to become a platform for training products and services, so firms will be able to use it as well as individuals. Participants pay a share of their generated income – which is collected by Letexa – to the project.
A) If the product a user paid for uses components from other participants those get a share of the total. This includes, for example, firms or individuals who translate courses and components to other languages and then sell it.
B) Everyone who gets money pays a small share of their total income to Letexa. This is the global pool.

The global pool is for expenses for the platform itself. Hosting, administrators, buildings (some day), legal costs, marketing etc., all get compensated from this pool.

Unlike in a countries' tax system, though, those who pay can a) set the tax rate themselves (majority rule), and b) decide what gets done with it and who gets it. I, the founder of Letexa for example, cannot simply decide to take half of that money out of the pool for myself. Well, maybe I could depending on how the project is setup legally in the end (right now it's not much more than a small website and a big idea), but I intent to remove that power and give it to the community, who will be able to determine who is in charge of what, or to fire and remove me form the project should I do so and you decide I went too far.

Like any good organization Letexa supports specialization. Not all users can participate in all decisions all the time. Instead, they select (hire) specialists to do so. Administrators, programmers, legal, etc. Such people can apply to be compensated from the global pool, since they do not produce income-generating products directly but are necessary nethertheless.

Income for Letexa can be derived from various sources.

First of all and obviously, multimedia course material can be sold directly, either to end users or to corporations, using various sales channels. One is the Letexa website.

Other products, for example courses made outside of Letexa can be sold – Letexa as a regular webshop platform specializing in computer-based training products.

Ads can be sold, e.g. Google ads. Those ads can be placed on the website or within courses. Special case – A combination of selling a course and an ad: Customers can choose to pay for a course, or for an extended section of an otherwise free course, OR they can view an ad of someone who pays for the course for them if they watch the ad.

The Letexa platform shall at some point include an infrastructure for providing – and getting paid for – live teaching and live help. As the platform provider Letexa gets a share of each transaction.

The service of creating content can be sold. Businesses can ask the Letexa community to create contents for them using the usual resources of content creators, content developers, translators, etc.

Here are some of the principles I would like to start with, in random order:

I'm leaving this open for now, because I've TOO many ideas and should provide an easy to understand system rather than lots of individual rules. In the money section there are some money-distribution rules. Other ideas:

Rule of qualified majority.
Some peoples' votes (on different subjects) count more than others – a power given and revoked by the community though. Idea: I never understood why things like the tax system in a country are subject to a general vote of all people through general elections, even though 90% of all people have NO IDEA about economic theory. General representation is decided by equal votes though.

Rules for how money is used, made, distributed (e.g. do we sell ad space? What kind of ads, all that e.g. Google Ads has?

Promote good people & behavior. There is going to be a ranking system, and participants with a good record should benefit.

Right now this architecture does not exist, everything is put on the filesystem and linked to statically from within the webpags and courses. First priority for the project is to create LEARNING CONTENTS first, something to look at from the point of view of people the project is targetting. Creating the dynamic infrastructure is second.

Webshop

The platform includes support for asking for money before viewing or downloading a course. This includes support for subscriptions and micropayments, since we would like to see low prices and lots of customers vs. the other way around...

Component Database

Components are an important part of the concept of this website. They are the basis on which we build a community-based learning website. We use components, which can be pictures, sounds, texts, animations, or even Java applets as part of the courses we build. Those components can be individually maintained, added to, replaced, exchanged, translated, etc. For example, you can use the explanation courselet about how Email works in general in any course about Email, Email software, the Internet, and so on. Another advantage of components is that you can created a duplicate of an existing course and only replace, for example, some pictures and the voice or video explanation! If users like your course more than the original YOU get all the traffic. The original author gets a big share of your earnings though, after all, you only improved what someone else worked hard to create, and improving is easier than creating. How large that share is depends on the policies decided by he community and how big the changes you made are.

The component database stores the components, of course. It also stores metadata with each component: who created and owns it, what license is it under, what revisions exist, which components where derived from this one, which translations exist, where is it used?

Frontend for Course Creation

The frontend supports timeline based editing of multimedia courses, so you can synchronize audio, video and events on screen. It also supports using existing components within the course, and editing existing courses, e.g. to add something the editor thinks the course is missing, change a text or picture, etc. The frontend creates an XML description of the course: what objects (components) are used when, where, how (e.g. transitions)?

Player for Courses

The player takes an XML course description, downloads all components it references and plays the course according to the instructions in the XML file. If the viewer wishes, the player integrates updates, comments made by other viewers, live help – and possibly ads.

Live help/Live teaching infrastructure

People shall be able to offer help and to teach online from their homes using the platform.

Administration and Government platform

Since the platform is community-owned we must do everything in the open. We need to (automatically) distribute income to various users based on policies set by users. We need to support specialization, so that doing things that do not directly make money, like translations of components or courses or legal help for the project, is worth being done. The community has a chance to set policies like how much income goes to whom: how much does the direct owner of a course make? How much does he/she/it (legal entities can be users!) have to pay to translators, the global pool, etc.?