AnimalCoward writes "I teach a Continuing Education courses in OO programming at our local state university. An email was just sent out from the program director asking if any instructors were interested in developing, and teaching, a course in OSS. My question to the slashdot crowd is: What would you want to see in an OSS class? What should be included? Should I bring up all the discussions about liability and multiple OSS licenses? The request didn't state it, but from experience I believe the students would have a programming background ranging from only mainframes to C++ to those with some Java experience." What Makes an OSS Class Work? Log in/Create an Account | Top | 190 comments (Spill at 50!) | Index Only | Search Discussion Display Options Threshold: -1: 190 comments 0: 187 comments 1: 145 comments 2: 96 comments 3: 30 comments 4: 14 comments 5: 10 comments Flat Nested No Comments Threaded Oldest First Newest First Highest Scores First Oldest First (Ignore Threads) Newest First (Ignore Threads) The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way. Fundementals (Score:5, Insightful) by rovingeyes (575063) <isaditya&yahoo,com> on Monday October 10, @05:49PM (#13759747) May be I am naive, but what else would you discuss in an OSS class except philosophy, legal, ethical and practicality arguments behind OSS? As far as I am concerned, it doesn't matter what programming language background the student has; because OSS class should not be about programming but every thing else surrounding it. For e.g. copyright law and how it relates to OSS, what are different OSS licenses and why are there so many? How can one create their own license and still maintain the spirit of OSS? And frankly the most important question this class should address is - WHY OSS?. I believe that between all the hoopla surrounding OSS, people have stopped asking the fundemental question. [ Reply to ThisRe:Fundementals by Anonymous Coward (Score:2)Monday October 10, @05:51PMRe:Fundementals by asmussen (Score:2)Monday October 10, @06:15PM Re:Fundementals (Score:4, Informative) by greginnj (891863) on Monday October 10, @06:40PM (#13760098) (Last Journal: Sunday October 02, @12:31PM) What else you ask?Uhhh, I just thought of an important one. What about "how to make money?"On this point, I think the example of Zope is illustrative. Investor Hadar Pedhazur was willing to pony up venture capital to fund Zope Corporation, on the condition that they open-source Zope. I'm not really a Zope fan, but the idea of an investor requiring a company to open-source their principal asset struck me as a hard-dollar vote for the value of OSS.See this for refs: http://www.faqs.org/docs/ZopeBook/IntroducingZope. html [faqs.org] ("Zope History" section) More detail: http://washington.bizjournals.com/washington/stori es/1999/05/24/focus4.html [bizjournals.com] [ Reply to This | Parent Re:Fundementals (Score:4, Interesting) by sameb (532621) on Monday October 10, @05:58PM (#13759823) (http://home.nyu.edu/~sab275) Indeed. A class on OSS is a business, legal or philosophy class, not a programming class. That doesn't mean CS students shouldn't have an OSS class, but if they do it certainly wouldn't be a programming one.If you want to do a programming class, use whatever code makes sense in teaching kids how to program. If you want to teach about how to use existing libraries while programming, make that an assignment -- ie, have an assignment that requires building a servlet, or making an http connection, or using various collection utilities.One problem with many college CS classes is that they ignore existing libraries. Yes, students need to learn how to do a bubble sort and build a linked list and prevent collisions in hash maps... but, students should realize and understand that it is often counter-productive to build these utilities themselves, especially when the existing ones are so widely used (meaning they're heavily documented and debugged). [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Fundamentals by jc42 (Score:3)Monday October 10, @06:39PMRe:Fundamentals by Atanamis (Score:1)Monday October 10, @07:25PMRe:Fundamentals by Pig Hogger (Score:3)Monday October 10, @07:45PMRe:Fundamentals by Hektor_Troy (Score:2)Monday October 10, @09:25PMRe:Fundamentals by sameb (Score:2)Monday October 10, @08:07PMRe:Fundamentals by malfunct (Score:1)Monday October 10, @09:24PMRe:Fundementals by Zphbeeblbrox (Score:2)Monday October 10, @05:58PMRe:Fundementals by LetterRip (Score:2)Monday October 10, @06:02PM Re:Fundementals (Score:5, Insightful) by chris macura (899109) on Monday October 10, @06:02PM (#13759852) Lecture 1: OSS. What is it, where is it, and why is it.Lecture 2: Types of licenses, when to use which.Lecture 3: How to modify the licenses to allow for various common changesLecture 4: Writing documentation: intro to man-pages (how to write them), doxygen, and latexLecture 5: Writing readable code: commenting, dependencies, and the merits of white-spaceLecture 6: How to use OSS in CSS (closed-source software), when it may/may not be done.Lecture 7: How to use versioning systems: CVS, SVN, etc.Lecture 8: -+              9: +-- Communication Skills: technical writing (not the bullshit they teach you in english 101)            10: -+Lecture 11: Survey of existing projects: why they succedded or failedLecture 12: dittoThat should cover it. I'm guessing a one/two credit course. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Fundementals by j1m+5n0w (Score:3)Monday October 10, @06:37PMRe:Fundementals by Johnny Mnemonic (Score:3)Monday October 10, @07:12PMRe:Fundementals by EvilSporkMan (Score:2)Monday October 10, @07:22PMRe:Fundementals by smackjer (Score:2)Monday October 10, @07:47PMRe:Fundementals by bogado (Score:2)Monday October 10, @07:57PMRe:Fundementals by Otter (Score:2)Monday October 10, @06:42PMRe:Fundementals by sinewalker (Score:1)Monday October 10, @07:24PMRe:Fundementals by hackwrench (Score:1)Monday October 10, @07:25PMGah by Lifewish (Score:2)Monday October 10, @07:30PMRe:Fundementals by GWBasic (Score:1)Monday October 10, @06:55PMSoftware Development Process by MonkeyCookie (Score:2)Monday October 10, @07:05PMRe:Fundementals by SnarfQuest (Score:1)Monday October 10, @07:12PMRe:Fundementals by sinewalker (Score:1)Monday October 10, @07:17PMMissed one by RingDev (Score:3)Monday October 10, @07:34PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Fundementals by bcrowell (Score:1)Monday October 10, @07:45PMRe:Fundementals by nxtr (Score:1)Monday October 10, @08:06PMDepends a lot on the language by IdahoEv (Score:2)Monday October 10, @08:07PMRe:Fundementals by eh2o (Score:3)Monday October 10, @08:46PMRe:Fundementals by maybenull (Score:1)Monday October 10, @09:32PMRe:Fundementals by MobyDisk (Score:2)Monday October 10, @09:59PMRe:Fundementals by blu3 b0y (Score:1)Monday October 10, @10:03PM2 replies beneath your current threshold.Computer Law by sterno (Score:2)Monday October 10, @06:14PMRe:Computer Law by Molt (Score:2)Monday October 10, @07:00PMRe:Computer Law by sterno (Score:2)Monday October 10, @07:22PMDistributed Project Managment by grahamsz (Score:2)Monday October 10, @06:30PMRe:Fundementals by b17bmbr (Score:2)Monday October 10, @06:32PMRe:Fundementals by OpenServe (Score:2)Monday October 10, @07:12PMRe:Fundementals by panaceaa (Score:2)Monday October 10, @08:11PMRe:Fundementals by stymyx (Score:1)Monday October 10, @08:20PMRe:Fundementals by TBone (Score:2)Monday October 10, @09:07PM2 replies beneath your current threshold.License and patent issues by Frogbert (Score:3)Monday October 10, @05:50PMOther aspects by m2pc (Score:3)Monday October 10, @05:51PMRe:Other aspects by plover (Score:2)Monday October 10, @06:23PMUserPerspectives by kd3bj (Score:1)Monday October 10, @06:37PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Göteborg University course (Score:5, Informative) by tcopeland (32225) * <tom@infoeCHICAGOther.com minus city> on Monday October 10, @05:52PM (#13759771) (http://tomcopeland.home.mindspring.com/) Their school of economics has a course on Open Source/Free Software [informatik.gu.se]. Here's the summary:The purpose of this course is to study the philosophical foundations and theories that have developed in the open source/free software field. Beginning with a historical view of the developments in theory and philosophy the course participants will continue their study of the phenomenon and also be given the opportunity to discuss the new issues these development philosophies have given rise to. Additionally the question of whether these same theories and philosophies can be applied in other fields of intellectual endeavour aside from programming.Sounds like nifty stuff, although not much in the way of actually fiddling with open source code. I guess it depends on what aspect of OSS you're trying to focus on... [ Reply to This The cathedral and the bazaar (Score:4, Insightful) by jarich (733129) on Monday October 10, @05:52PM (#13759773) (http://www.jaredrichardson.net/ | Last Journal: Saturday June 18, @09:11AM) http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar / [catb.org]Also, SourceForgeBasic tools. Source code management, build systems.Leadership techniques about getting people to work with you when you aren't paying them and can't fire them. [ Reply to ThisDon't Forget The GNU Manifesto. by Errandboy of Doom (Score:1)Monday October 10, @05:57PMRe:The cathedral and the bazaar by MaskedSlacker (Score:1)Monday October 10, @07:00PM IT Law (Score:5, Interesting) by daveed (545432) on Monday October 10, @05:52PM (#13759778) OSS isn't strictly an IT issue. It's a rights issue.Who owns software? software design? concepts? ideas? thoughts?This sounds like what I should have been taught in our semester of IT Law (As apposed to the far too specific individual legal cases to do with Data Protection Act (still very interesting though)).If you were to take this class. A major part of the course would have to be the GPL. This has to be the most clear cut academic outline of OSS.In short... Very good idea :) [ Reply to ThisRe:IT Law by el_flynn (Score:1)Monday October 10, @08:17PMDefinitely need. by mctk (Score:2)Monday October 10, @05:54PMI sincerely hope it's freedom. by game kid (Score:2)Monday October 10, @06:21PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.1 reply beneath your current threshold. Is this for Continuing Education? (Score:5, Interesting) by PDXNerd (654900) on Monday October 10, @05:55PM (#13759798) (http://www.thecensored.com/ | Last Journal: Monday January 31, @04:24PM) You said "Continuing Education" which I translate as "Not-for-credit", or in other words, a class one takes in ones own time which does not count towards anything other than personal satisfaction or career enrichment. Look at your target audience: beginning to mid-level programmers with no real-world experience. Adults, probably older than college-age, who have families and careers (or not) and are looking to learn. If they take an OSS course, they are interested. Don't scare them off by jumping straight into philosophy and legalities - explain the history of OSS by exploring what is GNU, why they existed, talk about the split between ATT UNIX/BSD/etc. Introduce Linux. Introduce the wide-range of programming tools available. THEN, and ONLY THEN talk about the details. If you don't pique their interest right off, you are liable to scare them off. Most programmers I know aren't too keen on using their free time to discuss legalities and philosophies. (I know you exist out there, but you are not the majority.) [ Reply to ThisRe:Is this for Continuing Education? by DJCF (Score:2)Monday October 10, @06:24PMRe:Is this for Continuing Education? by stuffduff (Score:3)Monday October 10, @06:25PMRe:Is this for Continuing Education? by sameerds (Score:1)Tuesday October 11, @12:29AM Get Involved (Score:5, Insightful) by Acius (828840) on Monday October 10, @05:56PM (#13759811) (http://www.ninjabee.com/) If you're talking to computer science students, it might be a good idea to have them research an OSS project they like and contribute something to it. I think a lot of students are pro-OSS in theory, but haven't taken the time to actually get their hands dirty with real, live code. If you require them to find and do some work on an existing project then they get valuable experience in researching what's out there, familiarizing themselves with existing community gathering points, etc.True, a lot of the code they contribute will suck, but that's nothing new. And if they keep trying, they'll get better at it. [ Reply to ThisRe:Get Involved by Derkec (Score:2)Monday October 10, @06:32PMRe:Get Involved by cborg (Score:1)Monday October 10, @07:19PMRe:Get Involved by paul.schulz (Score:1)Monday October 10, @08:06PMRe:Get Involved by kbielefe (Score:2)Monday October 10, @08:23PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Ernest T Bass Quote (Score:5, Funny) by pin_gween (870994) on Monday October 10, @05:56PM (#13759814) What would you want to see in an OSS class? Girls [ Reply to ThisRe:Ernest T Bass Quote by Space_Balls (Score:1)Monday October 10, @06:19PMRe:Ernest T Bass Quote by objekt (Score:2)Monday October 10, @06:50PMSource Control and Licensing by foobarra (Score:1)Monday October 10, @05:57PM A few things... (Score:5, Insightful) by Omega1045 (584264) on Monday October 10, @05:57PM (#13759817) 1) Info on licensing and the GPL, etc, etc at some point. Perhaps an intro to FOSS licensing at the beginning, and more details at the end.2) Coding Standards! I think that good coding standards and commenting are especially important in an OSS project.3) Using OSS tools: If the student is going to become as OSS programmer, then they really need to know how to use CVS, Bugzilla, etc, etc. I am sure you can come up with a good list of the things a developer needs.4) Walk the students through setting up Linux, and using its basic functions (grep, etc) and its programming tools (gcc, make, etc). Go over the very, very basic stuff. I programmed for a while in a Wintel inviro in college before getting into an AIX system. It was a shock, and the prof seemed to think that we (me and the other students) had been programming in Unix before. It took me some time to get used to using to tools for development in Unix. Today, you probably also need to go over some command line stuff. I remember it not being that big of a deal, since I was used to DOS. I bet a lot of student today have never used DOS, or it was a long time ago. [ Reply to ThisRe:A few things... by sinewalker (Score:1)Monday October 10, @07:11PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. A lot of small topics (Score:4, Informative) by AuMatar (183847) on Monday October 10, @05:59PM (#13759834) It seems there's a lot of amll 1 lecture topics, but not many big huge things*philosophy of OSS, and OSS vs Free Software*Differences between the major licenses (GPL, LGPL, BSD)*Major OSS successes*OSS development tools (sourceforge, gcc, ddd, etc)*A project where they fix a bug in an open source program of their choice (or add a feature), and submit it to the maintainer.*OSS buisness modelsOther than actually coding some open source software, there's really not much I can see teaching to make it a whole class. [ Reply to ThisRe:A lot of small topics by stoothman (Score:1)Monday October 10, @06:14PMRe:A lot of small topics by AuMatar (Score:2)Monday October 10, @06:24PMGet inside the code by N1AK (Score:2)Monday October 10, @06:00PMRe:Get inside the code by N1AK (Score:1)Monday October 10, @06:05PMRe:Get inside the code by jc42 (Score:2)Monday October 10, @06:50PMFundamentals+ pick a story like Apache by teaDrunk (Score:1)Monday October 10, @06:01PMPractical issues of using/developing OSS by kclittle (Score:1)Monday October 10, @06:02PMOne-time seminar by compupc1 (Score:2)Monday October 10, @06:03PMRe:One-time seminar by plover (Score:2)Monday October 10, @06:33PMTopics by Anonymous Coward (Score:2)Monday October 10, @06:04PMPlease discuss professionalism. by CyricZ (Score:1)Monday October 10, @06:04PMProfessionalism can make or break a project. by CyricZ (Score:2)Monday October 10, @06:38PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:How to deal with flamebaiters by CyricZ (Score:2)Monday October 10, @07:35PMIndeed, the KDE project has suffered. by CyricZ (Score:2)Monday October 10, @08:50PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.3 replies beneath your current threshold.OSS (Operational Support Systems) by tyagiUK (Score:3)Monday October 10, @06:05PMTeach the Dev. Process by stumbler (Score:1)Monday October 10, @06:05PMComparison for open source by Spy der Mann (Score:1)Monday October 10, @06:05PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Ask these people by bkhl (Score:1)Monday October 10, @06:08PMOSS development or OSS theory? by LOTHAR, of the Hill (Score:1)Monday October 10, @06:08PMScope? by naelurec (Score:2)Monday October 10, @06:09PMWhy not do a class project? by k3s (Score:1)Monday October 10, @06:09PMRe:Why not do a class project? by norwoodites (Score:2)Monday October 10, @06:27PMRe:Why not do a class project? by AnotherLostAtom (Score:1)Monday October 10, @07:19PMRe:Why not do a class project? by norwoodites (Score:2)Monday October 10, @07:35PMRe:Why not do a class project? by AnotherLostAtom (Score:1)Monday October 10, @11:16PMTeach them to be good programmers by KrisCowboy (Score:2)Monday October 10, @06:13PMRe:Teach them to be good programmers by grazzy (Score:3)Monday October 10, @07:01PM Lesson One. (Score:5, Funny) by GeneralEmergency (240687) on Monday October 10, @06:17PM (#13759956) (Last Journal: Wednesday October 08, @02:45PM) Lecture:Microsoft is Evil(TM). Review:Microsoft is Evil(TM). Test:Microsoft is ______________.A) Evil(TM)B) Mostly Evil with nice pockets here and there.C) Not very Evil.D) All of the above. [ Reply to ThisSome OSS class ideas by caffiend666 (Score:2)Monday October 10, @06:19PMIt's really simple by ShatteredDream (Score:2)Monday October 10, @06:22PMProcess and Philosphy by Qui-Gon (Score:2)Monday October 10, @06:23PMProjects by aduzik (Score:3)Monday October 10, @06:24PMWell if you want it to be useful by Sycraft-fu (Score:2)Monday October 10, @06:24PMWatch Revolution OS by digirus (Score:1)Monday October 10, @06:26PMProject Management on a disjunct group of people. by jellomizer (Score:2)Monday October 10, @06:31PMCode Reading by murr (Score:2)Monday October 10, @06:31PMWhat I would do by lengau (Score:1)Monday October 10, @06:34PMStarting off by mobby_6kl (Score:2)Monday October 10, @06:41PMImportant thing: money by suitepotato (Score:1)Monday October 10, @06:42PMContributing.... by A Unique Nick Name (Score:1)Monday October 10, @06:52PMopen source SENG by dgerman (Score:3)Monday October 10, @06:58PMInclude Windows OSS, Cygwin, Knoppix & Eclipse by irenaeous (Score:2)Monday October 10, @07:09PMGo back for clarification by ediron2 (Score:2)Monday October 10, @07:18PMOSS Programming? by MaestroSartori (Score:2)Monday October 10, @07:26PMUse Examples Like "GIMP vs. Photoshop" by Sundroid (Score:2)Monday October 10, @07:27PMI'm in an OSS class at UC Berkeley by BrianWCarver (Score:2)Monday October 10, @07:35PMStevens & FH Regensburg classes by hubertf (Score:2)Monday October 10, @07:36PMRe:Stevens & FH Regensburg classes by hubertf (Score:2)Monday October 10, @07:43PMNo Licensing/PM, Most students want to DEVELOP! by managedcode (Score:1)Monday October 10, @07:42PMMake it Free by nate nice (Score:2)Monday October 10, @07:55PMpython by sniggly (Score:2)Monday October 10, @07:57PMFrom the class I'm teaching right now... by sailracer6 (Score:3)Monday October 10, @08:01PM"How to join a project" would be interesting by iabervon (Score:2)Monday October 10, @08:15PMDont Preach by briancnorton (Score:2)Monday October 10, @08:18PMa ukelele by J. Random Luser (Score:2)Monday October 10, @08:22PMPractical Application by Ummu (Score:1)Monday October 10, @08:45PMPossibly.. by NotAgent86 (Score:1)Monday October 10, @09:40PMRe:Possibly.. by NotAgent86 (Score:1)Monday October 10, @09:43PMeh? by dexomn (Score:1)Monday October 10, @09:58PMMy 2 cents by holy zarquon's singi (Score:1)Monday October 10, @10:17PMOSS Class Wish List by hackus (Score:2)Monday October 10, @10:21PMThis free book offers many examples of FOSS use by rubylisper (Score:1)Monday October 10, @11:07PMOSS is about licensing. Period. by Arandir (Score:2)Monday October 10, @11:34PMThis free (online) book might be useful. by kfogel (Score:2)Tuesday October 11, @12:06AMGreat Opportunity.. by ShaolinTiger (Score:1)Tuesday October 11, @12:11AMOSS Class? by HermDog (Score:1)Tuesday October 11, @12:32AM Re:Be sure to include..... (Score:5, Informative) by rovingeyes (575063) <isaditya&yahoo,com> on Monday October 10, @05:55PM (#13759801) Even though you are trying to sound funny, I think two sections - "How to sell an idea" and "How to develop a business plan" will probably be invaluable. The key to success of an OSS is how much you can get funding in VC and how long you can keep them happy. Obviously this means profiting from the business model surrounding the product. So not only do you have to be a good at marketing yourself or the product, but you should have some business sense to make that project a success. [ Reply to This | ParentProfessionalism is a must. by CyricZ (Score:3)Monday October 10, @06:08PMSuccessful projects require professionalism. by CyricZ (Score:3)Monday October 10, @07:01PMRe:Successful projects require professionalism. by CyricZ (Score:2)Monday October 10, @08:53PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.3 replies beneath your current threshold.Nah, forget all that. by fireboy1919 (Score:2)Monday October 10, @10:03PM3 replies beneath your current threshold.Re:Slashdot is the wrong group of people to ask by ajwitte (Score:1)Monday October 10, @06:19PMRe:What NOT to teach.... by yo_tuco (Score:1)Monday October 10, @06:32PM22 replies beneath your current threshold.