From the website:

UC Berkeley is developing a podcast capture, post-processing, and distribution system that will integrate current technological advancements such as Apple's Podcast Producer with existing academic community source frameworks such as Sakai to replace its antiquated system.

The initial release of the OpenCast system is projected for Fall 2008 and will satisfy our campus' local needs.  This system will not be a turn key solution since many institutions have different organizational, policy, and business requirements, and demand a certain level of cost for adoption. Nevertheless. UC Berkeley has taken steps to develop a flexible object model that will allow other schools to potentially participate in a broader community source initiative.   Because other institutions use CLE solutions outside of Sakai, the OpenCast system will run standalone as well as within the Sakai environment, and is designed to abstract Podcast Producer as a "Media Processing and Capture Engine" to allow for other alternatives.