Our current assignment is to read two articles from opensource.com and blog our response to these articles.
Sebastian Dziallas' article, How to Teach Undergrads How to Become Open Source Contributors Without Writing Any Code, caught my attention because it involves a different approach to teaching open source. As a computer science major, it makes sense to include coding as part of the core open source experience in a software engineering class; however, not all contributors to open source projects are programmers. Chapter 8 in Teaching Open Source describes the importance of documentation and technical writing. There are many opportunities to contribute to these vibrant open source communities outside of the realm of coding, but it seems as though very few classes offer a glimpse into this alternate perspective.
Dziallas' Release Engineering course started as somewhat of an experiment, and it developed into a highly educational experience. From his descriptions, projects went better than expected, and students were given the chance to see Tom Callaway, the Fedora Engineering Manager, talk in person about some of the same issues that Dziallas mentioned in class. I would like to see more opportunities for people to branch out and explore the world of open source. Dziallas mentions that he has been working with Fedora since he was 16. I am only beginning my adventure at the age of 21, but I am glad to have this opportunity.
Another article that sparked my interest is Anthony Biller's A Cure for the Common Troll. I mentioned much earlier in my blog that I read tech-blogs, such as engadget and gizmodo, on a daily basis. I have not seen as much mention of it lately, but, for a while, lawsuits concerning patent infringements dominated the headlines. Samsung and Apple battled it out constantly over, what is in my opinion, trivial matters. The authors of these posts and many of the readers pointed out that this incessant bickering is a common marketing scheme to help fill the coffers when business is slow.
The trolls that Biller mentions go above and beyond the previously mentioned form of trolling. "Patent trolls," as he calls them, hold patents to technologies and manufacturing processes that they will probably never use. Some trolls make six to seven digit figures based on abusing the patent system alone. Apple has been known to patent anything and everything that they can, but the real patent trolls have no real plans with these patents other than threatening other companies and making an absurd amount of money in the process. I am not a big legal buff and do not understand all of Biller's suggested solutions, but his first solution seems to plug a major loophole in the patent system. Without vague "umbrella" patents that cover every possible domain, patent trolls would have a much harder time abusing the system.
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