[TOS] Seb Benthall on FOSS vs academic culture

Jim Bowring bowring at gmail.com
Wed Mar 7 10:33:41 UTC 2012


Why the closed-minded vitriol about the academy?  Positive actions are
required!

Jim Bowring
Principal Investigator, www.CIRDLES.org <http://www.CIRDLES.org%20>

Computer Science
College of Charleston
66 George Street
Charleston, SC 29424

Google Voice: 843.608.1399 (preferred)
Google Email: bowring at gmail.com

Office:
JC Long room 222
843.953.0805
http://stono.cs.cofc.edu/~bowring/
bowringj at cofc.edu

R. Buckminster Fuller (1972):
If humanity is to survive aboard our planet, it must become universally
literate and preoccupied with inherently cooperative Comprehensive
Anticipatory Design Science in which every human is concerned with
accomplishing the comfortably sustainable well-faring of all other humans.


2012/3/7 Sebastian Benthall <sbenthall at gmail.com>

> Wow, flattered you'd quote me on this list.  I think your academic parody
> version is dead on.
>
> Yep, I'm on this list.  I'm quiet on it since my work hasn't had much of
> an explicit educational focus (it would be hard to say it has any focus at
> all at this point).  However, approaching academic research with a FOSS
> mentality has been an interesting experience, and one that has some
> resonance with people once you explain it to them.
>
> I think you are right on in your blog post[1] that it would be great to
> have some community infrastructure in place for this sort of thing.  I
> haven't been able to tell yet in my lurking if it's within scope for this
> list, though I guess you just set that precedent :)
>
> [1]
> http://blog.melchua.com/2012/03/06/tracking-fellow-foss-to-academia-migrants/
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 10:32 PM, Mel Chua <mel at purdue.edu> wrote:
>
>> Seb (a grad student from UC Berkeley who I think is on this mailing list)
>> gave the best summary of the open source mentality in one paragraph that
>> I've seen yet, on http://digifesto.com/2012/02/**28/another-rant-about-**
>> academia-and-open-source<http://digifesto.com/2012/02/28/another-rant-about-academia-and-open-source>
>> :
>>
>> "I’m going to try to build a totally great new thing. It’s going to be a
>> lot of work, but it will be worth it because it’s going to be so useful and
>> cool. Gosh, it would be helpful if other people worked on it with me,
>> because this is a lonely pursuit and having others work with me will help
>> me know I’m not chasing after a windmill.
>>
>> If somebody wants to work on it with me, I’m going to try hard to give
>> them what they need to work on it. But hell, even if somebody tells me they
>> used it and found six problems in it, that’s motivating; that gives me
>> something to strive for. It means I have (or had) a user. Users are
>> awesome; they make my heart swell with pride. Also, bonus, having lots of
>> users means people want to pay me for services or hire me or let me give
>> talks.
>>
>> But it’s not like I’m trying to keep others out of this game, because
>> there is just so much that I wish we could build and not enough time! Come
>> on! Let’s build the future together!"
>>
>> I wonder what the academic version of this paragraph looks like. Here's
>> my attempt...
>>
>> "I’m going to try to build a totally great new thing. It’s going to be a
>> lot of work, but it will be worth it because it’s going to be so useful and
>> cool. Gosh, it would be awful if other people came and stole my idea, so
>> this is going to be a lonely pursuit and having others work with me will
>> only happen if I really trust them; I already know I’m not chasing after a
>> windmill.
>>
>> If somebody wants to work on it with me, I’m going to figure out if I can
>> trust them, then work out the arrangements of our secure, long-term
>> commitment, then give them what they need to work on it. And we have to
>> keep this secret - if somebody tells me they used it and found six problems
>> in it, that might keep us from getting published. Users are awesome, but
>> only when we're ready for them; when they do things we expect, they make
>> our CVs swell with papers. Also, bonus, having lots of papers means people
>> want to give me tenure or let me give talks.
>>
>> But it's not like I'm trying to keep others out of this game, I'm just
>> making sure they do it properly and in a way that doesn't hurt me, because
>> there's so much to do and not enough time to deal with crap if it comes up!
>> Come on! Let’s build the future together!"
>>
>> --Mel
>> ______________________________**_________________
>> tos mailing list
>> tos at teachingopensource.org
>> http://lists.**teachingopensource.org/**mailman/listinfo/tos<http://lists.teachingopensource.org/mailman/listinfo/tos>
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> tos mailing list
> tos at teachingopensource.org
> http://lists.teachingopensource.org/mailman/listinfo/tos
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.teachingopensource.org/pipermail/tos/attachments/20120307/297887ac/attachment-0001.html>


More information about the tos mailing list