[TOS] JQOSS and JTOS

[Rob Cameron]

Although I have sounded a note of caution on the topic of
establishing peer-reviewed open source journals, I certainly
think it is an important item to keep on the agenda.

To be realistic, though, I think we are talking about (at least)
two different things.   I will address this by giving them names:
JQOSS:  Journal of Quality in Open Source Software
JTOS:  Journal of Teaching Open Source

The idea of JQOSS would be to promote academic contributions
to actual open source software that address one of the software
engineering "ilities":  reliability, usability, safety, testability,
performance, and so on.    It could also be a venue for
publishing studies that compare particular open-source
codebases against each other or against non-open-source
on one or more of the quality bases.   Done well, its very
title and editorial stance could be a contribution to open
source in raising the perception that "quality" and "open
source" go together.

The second journal is one focused on using open source
as a vehicle for experiential teaching of computing science
and related fields.   It could be a very valuable outcome
and extension of this very list.   Realistically, it may not be
so useful in advancing tenure and promotion cases for faculty
in research institutions.    It's greatest value would probably
be just for what it is: a place to publish well-documented
experience and analysis of the role of open source in
teaching.

Rob