[TOS] looking for feedback on ideas for an open source development course
Mel Chua
mel at purdue.edu
Mon Mar 11 20:38:23 UTC 2013
I'll make suggestions on the reading list from the following perspective:
Seb, you've drunk the FOSS Kool-Aid in both Practice and Philosophy
flavors for years (that's why it's such a joy to talk with you). Your
students are likely to come in with a minimal and stereotypical view of
FOSS, and little in the way of relevant experience to make sense of
these readings with, so things that are vital and rich to you may be
abstract and meaningless to them until they get hands-on dev experience
in an *existing* community (+1 to that suggestion, btw -- it's hard to
learn French without hearing fluent speakers in conversation with each
other!). I'd think of all these readings as reflection prompts on their
experiences in FOSS through the semester (the same way reading about
Chinese culture makes a lot more sense after you've gone to China).
Grading (mostly for you, not your students):
* http://vocamus.net/dave/?p=680
* http://zenit.senecac.on.ca/wiki/index.php/OSD600#Grading
for everything practical and then some:
* Fogel, K. Producing Open Source Software (+1; Karl is revising this
right now,
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kfogel/updating-producing-open-source-software-for-2nd-ed)
*
http://quaid.fedorapeople.org/TOS/Practical_Open_Source_Software_Exploration/html/
-- note that this *is* unmaintained and outdated (see recent threads on
this list started by students interested in reviving work on the project
-- editing/updating might be a good "learn to use mediawiki" assignment).
governance:
* Freeman, J. The "Tyrrany of Structurelessness" (on Seb's original
list, but I haven't read it)
* Ostrom, E. Governing the Commons (on Seb's original list, but I
haven't read it)
* The Starfish and the Spider (parts thereof; easy-read book)
* http://hbr.org/2001/12/what-leaders-really-do/ar/1 (not FOSS-specific,
but short and a good discussion-starter on the "ask forgiveness, not
permission" FOSS mentality vs the "wait for orders" students are often
conditioned into)
* also consider: how important is this in the grand scheme of the
course? are you trading-off the pragmatics of producing open source in
exchange for more philosophy time? (The philosophy may not make sense
until they have experience with the pragmatics.)
business models:
* Pentaho's Beekeeper stuff:
http://wiki.pentaho.com/display/BEEKEEPER/The+Beekeeper (from Seb's
original list, I haven't read)
* Asay, M. something by him like
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10244853-16.html (from Seb's original
list, I haven't read)
* You asked for stuff about Red Hat:
http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/02/how-red-hat-killed-its-core-productand-became-a-billion-dollar-business/
is short and readable
* You asked for Twitter/Github/Mozilla stuff: this might be a nice
Github reading/media bundle --
http://answers.onstartups.com/questions/32530/is-the-github-business-model-successful
(with video),
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/78991/why-is-github-more-popular-than-gitorious,
and http://erickerr.com/github-is-eating-the-world from a HR point of
view. Twitter isn't FOSS, but comparing it with identi.ca may be
interesting; Mozilla you'll need to ask someone else for reading
suggestions on.
* In general, http://opensource.com/business may be a nice "find
something interesting to read from here" spot
* But again, is there a tradeoff between reading this and *doing* FOSS work?
classical (?) texts:
* RMS. Something. Or maybe just stuff from here;
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/ (I'd specifically have them read
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html)
* ESR. The Cathedral and the Bazaar (personal opinion: important
historical document, BUT long and dated and the opinionated views of a
single person who is often not transparent about clarifying his
biases/positionality -- I know you're aware that not everyone sees the
world like esr does/did, but if you choose this make sure your students
also grasp the multivocal and often contradictory nature of FOSS
culture, lest they think CATB is the Voice of God.)
*
http://www.thelinuxdaily.com/2010/04/the-first-linux-announcement-from-linus-torvalds/
culture:
* Coleman, G. -- I love Biella's writing, but I'm not sure if her work
is applicable for the course you described -- it's beautiful
anthropology, but your students as new FOSS hackers won't recognized
themselves in it -- yet -- so it'll likely remain theoretical rather
than illuminating to them. I could see the epilogue on p. 207 of
http://gabriellacoleman.org/Coleman-Coding-Freedom.pdf being a good
"multivocality" counterpart to esr. Otherwise, I'd save Biella's work
for another class.
* Kelty, C. Two Bits . (on Seb's original list, but I haven't read it)
*
http://mako.cc/copyrighteous/the-cost-of-collaboration-for-code-and-art
("is this true? if so, why do FOSS at all?")
* I'd have them choose an active project Planet feed to monitor each
week for N weeks, summarizing X blog posts (X=3? 1-3 sentences per
summary?) each week for the first Y weeks
* and/or the above with a mailing list. A good first-contribution for a
few weeks is a weekly digest/summary of list activity sent back to the
list, playing the journalist role in the community (public) while
learning basic tools in the classroom (private) -- see
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FWN/Issue296?rd=FWN/LatestIssue for an
example.
international participation:
* Tahkteyev, Y. Coding places . (on Seb's original list, but I haven't
read it)
* You seem to use a lot of book-like/academic-paper readings as opposed
to live/less-formal data, like
http://fedoraproject.org/membership-map/ambassadors.html (constructed
via https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora_ambassadors_map; possible
discussion-starter on the impossibility of accurately tracking FOSS
contribution/usage)
something on gender in open source?
* again, although I care *deeply* about this topic, I'm not sure if it's
going to be illuminating for students who don't already identify with
the FOSS movement, and worry that if a female student's first exposure
to FOSS is "there are no women!" before she *actually* gets into it,
that could be off-putting. Also, it's just damn hard to discuss. But if
you want to plunge in...
*
http://infotrope.net/2009/07/25/standing-out-in-the-crowd-my-oscon-keynote/
(excellent first overview of the situation, plus see comments discussion)
* http://www.etsy.com/hacker-grants (what do you think of this program
as a response?)
* https://live.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen (or this?)
* http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Conference_anti-harassment/Policy
(or this?)
Also, +1 to guests from the FOSS world coming to class -- not just to
lecture, but to plunge in and review/hack/tinker/dialogue with students
as they do their hacking in the lab.
Exciting times. Good luck!
--Mel
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