Thanks again for this feedback. It's great and helpful. A few things are on my mind as I read these comments.
The first is about the trade-off between assigning readings and practical experience. What I'm hearing is a preference in this community towards practice, which makes sense. But I think that these students--Masters students in an interdisciplinary professional school--might be different from the undergraduate computer scientists that similar courses are targeted at. These students will have already been exposed to a lot of social science <http://courses.ischool.berkeley.edu/i203/s13/?page_id=21> about IT, and are primarily interested in getting interesting jobs coming out the program. So, part of what I was thinking with the readings is how to expose them to open source in a way that would make them consider organizations based around it as a viable professional choice. (note: I included Twitter on this list because of their stated commitment to open sourcing many of their core components--I'm coming around grudgingly to thinking this sort of model is not so bad. At least their heart is in the right place. Not even GitHub open sources everything--it's still an 'open core' model.) Another thing I'm hearing is that contributing to an existing project is preferable to starting a new one. That makes a lot of sense. But I also know that what will excite these students is the development of some kind of usable application that they can use in their portfolios. I want to give them the opportunity to build towards that. And while I see the point about how it's best to learn from an existing community, I wonder if a project where everything needs to be pushed back through an already large community would prevent them from moving as swiftly as they'd like. Any advice on the kinds of projects that it's appropriate to get students to work on? What I'm wondering now is if I can find a way to frame the project so that there are real decisions to be made about what gets pushed upstream and what makes it into the application. That would square with my experience of trying to build new open source products, at least. What I had in mind with the idea of starting a new project was partly also as a way to show why open source practices are the way they are. I mean, almost immediately if people start developing they are going to run into the kinds of problems that open source best practices are designed to solve. I guess I'd argue that facing those problems and adopting norms to solve them is a very different kind of experience than learning a set of practices from an existing community. In the former case, the norms are real solutions, in the latter case they may seem arbitrary. Admittedly what I'm drawing from here is experience being thrown into the deep-end on building out new projects and interfacing with several smaller, idiosyncratic projects. I wonder if this is a different open source experience from, say, the experience of working with Linux. I'm very curious what projects you use for your teaching, and how far out on the long tail of project sizes they are. On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 1:51 PM, carlsonp @iastate.edu <carls...@iastate.edu > wrote: > Some more references on gender in OSS (and STEM in general): > > Ghosh, Rishab Aiyer and Glott, Ruediger and Krieger, Bernhard and Robles, > Gregorio, "Free/Libre and Open Source Software: Survey and Study", > University of Maastricht (2002), 69. > > Beede, David and Julian, Tiffany and Langdon, David and McKittrick, George > and Khan, Beethika and Doms, Mark, "Women in STEM: A Gender Gap to > Innovation" (2011). > > Nafus, Dawn and Leach, James and Krieger, Bernhard, "Free/Libre and Open > Source Software: Policy Support" (2006), 1--75. > > Holliger, Andrea, "The Culture of Open Source Computing" (2007), 1--8. > > > Powell, Whitney E. and Hunsinger, D. Scott and Medlin, B. Dawn, "Gender > Differences Within the Open Source Community: An Exploratory Study", > Journal of Information Technology Management XXI, 4 (2010), pp. 29--37. > > > > -Patrick Carlson > > > > On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 3:38 PM, Mel Chua <m...@purdue.edu> wrote: > >> 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<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://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kfogel/updating-producing-open-source-software-for-2nd-ed> >> ) >> * http://quaid.fedorapeople.org/**TOS/Practical_Open_Source_** >> Software_Exploration/html/<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<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<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<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/<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<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<http://stackoverflow.com/questions/78991/why-is-github-more-popular-than-gitorious>, >> and >> http://erickerr.com/github-is-**eating-the-world<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<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/<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<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<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<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<http://fedoraproject.org/membership-map/ambassadors.html>(constructed >> via >> https://fedoraproject.org/**wiki/Fedora_ambassadors_map<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/<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 >> <http://www.etsy.com/hacker-grants>(what do you think of this program as a >> response?) >> * >> https://live.gnome.org/**OutreachProgramForWomen<https://live.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen>(or >> this?) >> * http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/**wiki/Conference_anti-** >> harassment/Policy<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 >> >> ______________________________**_________________ >> tos mailing list >> tos@teachingopensource.org >> http://lists.**teachingopensource.org/**mailman/listinfo/tos<http://lists.teachingopensource.org/mailman/listinfo/tos> >> > > > _______________________________________________ > tos mailing list > tos@teachingopensource.org > http://lists.teachingopensource.org/mailman/listinfo/tos > >
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