[TOS] how broad a mandate?

Greg Hislop hislopg at drexel.edu
Thu Apr 30 16:48:31 UTC 2009


Actually, I'm surprised that you even offered the disclaimer.  While there 
might be discussion of how or where to address topics like this, 
everything you mention would seem like an easy fit to any computing degree 
program that address open source.  The equity issue is serious enough that 
it is shaping the culture and limiting the size of the professional 
computing community.  How could it not be a topic included in TOS?

Greg Hislop



From:
Greg Wilson <gvwilson at cs.utoronto.ca>
To:
tos <tos at teachingopensource.org>
Date:
04/30/2009 08:40 AM
Subject:
[TOS] how broad a mandate?



[Disclaimer: I'm not trying to make trouble or raise temperatures in this, 

just trying to get a feel for what participants in this list think is in 
scope.]

It's pretty clear that materials for teaching open source have to talk 
about licensing, which I believe necessitates discussion of the wider 
social context of copyright vs. file sharing, software patents, free 
speech, etc.  Discussions of open source "in the large" also often touch 
on the needs of developing countries.  Given all of that, should we also 
cover equity issues, such as why gender ratios in open source are much 
worse than they are in the industry as a whole (where they are in turn 
worse than in most white collar sectors)?  Incidents such as Mike 
Gunderloy's resignation from the Rails Activists group [1] over the 
responses to Sarah Allen's complaints about GoGaRuCo [2] mean that 
students are going to encounter the question; should we be trying to give 
them context?

Thanks,
Greg

[1] http://afreshcup.com/2009/04/28/a-painful-decision/
[2] 
http://www.ultrasaurus.com/sarahblog/2009/04/gender-and-sex-at-gogaruco/
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