13:16:03 #startmeeting 13:16:03 Meeting started Thu Oct 29 13:16:03 2009 UTC. The chair is mchua. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot. 13:16:03 Useful Commands: #action #agreed #halp #info #idea #link #topic. 13:16:08 Logging for TOSS 2009 @ Seneca 13:16:14 #topic introductions 13:16:23 Dru Lavigne 13:16:26 Dave Humphrey 13:16:28 Frank Hecker 13:16:33 Greg DeKoenigsberg 13:16:34 Karlie Robinson 13:16:59 Michael Adeyeye 13:17:00 Chris Tyler 13:17:01 Mel Chua 13:17:52 Gabor Laszlo 13:17:57 Andrew Smith 13:17:59 Luis Ibanez 13:18:20 Fardad Soleimanloo 13:19:33 David Kitzanc (sp?) 13:19:40 #topic agenda for the day 13:19:47 ctyler laying out the agenda for the day. 13:20:38 mchua: perhaps this should be in #teachingopensource 13:21:43 ctyler: meetbot isn't in that channel yet 13:22:25 agenda: 13:22:33 * current initiatives and projects (at schools, at .orgs, .coms) 13:22:44 * current global state of the teaching open source (direction, what's needed) 13:22:52 * teachingopensource.org (history, state, projects) 13:23:00 * future direction / where do we go from here 13:23:15 #topic what's happening at schools 13:23:16 David giving his update 13:24:18 gregdek: log so far at http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/teachingopensource-posse/2009-10-29/teachingopensource-posse.2009-10-29-13.16.log.txt 13:24:22 actually, 13:24:22 #link http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/teachingopensource-posse/2009-10-29/teachingopensource-posse.2009-10-29-13.16.log.txt 13:27:35 hey t0mmyw! 13:27:49 David talking about HFOSS right now 13:27:50 #link http://hfoss.org/ 13:28:04 Greg asking about how a new project/institution comes on board HFOSS 13:40:50 Dave H. asks: how do we ensure that orgs like HFOSS and TOS don't end up competing with one another for resources? General discussion. 13:43:46 Karlie talking about how OLPC and "teaching open source" started at RIT. 13:44:49 Steve Jacobs talking about Service Learning and Sugar activity development at RIT 13:59:20 Karlie and Steve continue to talk about Sugar activity and development. Considering a POSSE for RIT. 14:06:25 Michael talking about his work. 14:06:30 He's working towards his PhD 14:07:38 hey, spevack. 14:08:19 we're getting a preview of http://fsoss.senecac.on.ca/2009/node/144 14:08:45 Working with (Mozilla stuff, it sounds like?) at Cape Town for the 2nd time now. 14:09:31 Bringing his experience into some of the classes he's teaching, bringing Mozilla, MobiSense, PJC (?) 14:11:00 Michael points out that using Windows as a development environment is also OK, you can contribute to FOSS without using (for whatever reason) Linux. 14:12:36 Question from Chris: Are the students you're working with the first wave of FOSS users/contribs in South Africa? or have others gone before? 14:13:20 Answer: certainly not as part of formal studies, if any participate it would be from personal interest 14:13:41 some students have developed things they've released under open licenses, this has happened before 14:14:01 but mostly there's not much (just a few isolated examples, it sounds lke) 14:14:04 like 14:14:37 Greg: every OSS dev I know is self-taught 14:14:55 if the only way to learn open source is to teach yourself, that severely limits the number of people who can learn open source 14:15:02 on the one hand, that means that folks we do get are extremely motivated 14:15:15 on the other hand, it's a missed opportunity to get the rest 14:16:01 and someday companies that don't want open source to live will start to counteract it 14:16:06 Karlie: *tells story about exactly that* 14:18:12 Michael: Before South Africa, came from Nigeria 14:18:51 There is a project translating FOSS software packages into African languages 14:19:54 http://translate.org.za/ 14:20:10 And Frank Hecker notes that much of the work around the world involves localization. 14:20:27 * mchua muses that there might actually be another filter coming into play here for engineers and FOSS contributors both; those who contribute speak English (great!) and English is the language of instruction (great!) but only those who can manage to speak English can join "that world" (...not great!) 14:20:53 s/speak/read-and-write, really 14:20:54 which is often easier than speaking for many. 14:21:28 s/often/usually? 14:21:36 Among likely computer users, anyway. 14:23:01 So here's a question: do you need to speak English to join the FOSS world? (You can replace that with any number of criteria - "do you need to code?" etc.) 14:23:12 http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html seems to indicate yes. 14:23:21 It was also first written in 2005. 14:23:28 I think the world has changed considerably since. 14:24:25 Just because current FOSS contributors fit $profile doesn't mean we should focus on recruiting /only/ more of $profile. Plenty of non-represented groups to tap as well. 14:24:29 Mozilla meetup at Maker Faire in Ghana: http://www.davidajao.com/blog/2009/08/17/mfa-2009-the-mozilla-team/ 14:24:58 for those who have just joined, current logs are at http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/teachingopensource-posse/2009-10-29/ 14:25:26 Stories from different geo regions - South America, Eastern Europe different from North America 14:25:43 NA folks can afford to spend a couple hours of free time on FOSS stuff 14:25:47 https://fedoraproject.org/membership-map/ 14:25:57 A map of members in Fedora. A handful in Africa. 14:26:45 neat map. looks like Fedora not very popular in Russia 14:27:12 * mchua points out that not all NA folks have that free time; some kids have to babysit or work or etc. and can't find spare moments to participate 14:27:33 benefit of making it a school assignment is that then those kids also have the time (because it is required for school) 14:29:11 * mchua stole that thought from Mikell Taylor, Olin '06, btw - first comment on http://blog.melchua.com/2006/12/03/hackstar-20-not-just-white-males/ 14:29:40 Michael mentioning Meltwater school 14:30:11 (not a gender thing, more a "people who don't fit usual profile of those represented in $majority" thing, but the two are correlated in this field) 14:30:20 Greg talking about translation communities in Fedora 14:30:37 Working to strengthen that infrastructure in Fedora, but wonder if there is more we can do 14:30:43 Chris notes that Transifex is a tool that helps lower that barrier 14:30:58 http://transifex.org 14:33:55 Dru talking about certifications 14:34:11 vendors spend millions of $ on launching certs, don't expect to recoup those costs for 3-4 years 14:34:21 They need to get subject matter experts to vouch 14:35:54 Greg talking about RHCE cert @RH; reason it's a good test is that it crushes poeple, and you actually have to fix a broken system to pass 14:36:22 Chris: Dru, what type of exam is yours? 14:36:34 Dru: mixed - some practical, some knowledge 14:37:03 Seneca overview time 14:37:18 wait, more from Dru (yay) 14:37:27 we do have a masters program of (something) in tech 14:37:33 not much at the undergrad level 14:37:51 Masters requirement: work experience in tech world needed for admission 14:37:57 Dru talking about the TIM program at Carleton 14:38:11 Required to graduate: some research component of open source 14:38:17 so not TOS, but there is a FOSS component 14:39:11 Update from Luis 14:39:17 on RPI 14:40:29 30-40 students 14:40:41 in elective class on sw development 14:40:54 students do projects, some (all?) are FOSS 14:41:06 (I missed that part, can anyone fill in?) 14:41:14 elective not about teaching how to program, but teaching ways of doing things 14:41:48 http://www.rpi.edu/ 14:42:14 Laughing about how people mix up RPI and RIT 14:42:30 Chris: Do students in the course work within a community, or studying from outside one? 14:42:51 * mchua wonders how you determine whether something is "inside" or "outside" a community - can see activities where some people would say in, some would say out 14:43:15 Luis: not really within 14:45:12 Karlie talking about SCOPRE 14:45:15 er, SCORE 14:46:03 She runs her entire business on FOSS tools, and for people in the business world, that's something that does not even cross their minds 14:46:14 going to trade shows, etc. and showing that it's possible opens up minds 14:47:36 a lot of times when she talks about TOS, people come up and say "oh, you mean for business students!" 14:47:46 so maybe we should teach non-CS students too 14:48:19 she is using the term "publicly licensed software" instead of "open source" to talk with business people to avoid the long "now I have to explain code" trap 14:48:40 example: open licensed web designs, putting up a website on the cheap 14:50:11 another selling point for businesses (and therefore business students): security 14:54:38 Chris updating on what's happening at Seneca 14:58:46 Fardad talking about teaching 3rd semester C++ students to work in using Open Source methodology 15:04:00 ctyler: Er... what was said right before gregdek started his current reply? 15:04:52 http://zenit.senecac.on.ca/wiki/index.php/OOP344 15:06:09 The comment was that students are working on larger codebases than they have previously 15:07:31 Thanks. 15:08:19 (and for the record/log, the response from Greg was "that's the only thing students care about.") 15:10:32 Problem: how do you grade open source wokr? 15:10:34 work? 15:11:10 Fardad had a solution that I didn't catch ( gregdek, what was it that Fardad should tell HFOSS? ) 15:11:21 * mchua --> rsi break 15:11:42 It's easier to mark open source :-) 15:11:53 It's all in the open, you know who did what 15:12:08 the info was that his course is easier because he can see who actually does the work 15:12:37 version control 15:12:42 Fardad says "grading open source is easier when you introduce version control". 15:13:18 ...and wikis and blogs (w/ planet) 15:15:04 * mchua back 15:15:15 We need to make a list of these kinds of "Small Investment, Big Payoff" sorts of things 15:15:21 Yep. 15:15:58 #info: Small Investment: introduce VCS - Big Payoff: easy grading because you can see, with a fine grain, exactly what an individual student did. 15:16:03 * mchua <3 meetbot 15:16:46 Chris talking about elective class @ Seneca 15:16:50 on open source development 15:16:59 hoping that Fardad's class will feed some students into it 15:17:08 Dave expanding on that theme 15:17:30 Fardad's class is "learn object oriented C++" (...using open source tools/code/techniques) 15:17:38 Chris/Dave's class is "contribute to OSS" 15:19:41 mindshift: "teach what you know" --> "let's get people involved in an area we don't know!" (ex: Dave doesn't know gcc hacking, but his students are doing it) 15:19:54 what Dave does know is how to learn within OSS, how to guide students to learn that 15:20:15 hey, rharrison! 15:20:26 hello 15:25:31 rharrison: the log so far is at http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/teachingopensource-posse/2009-10-29/ 15:25:34 it's long 15:27:58 The question: how do we create more Dave Humpreys? 15:28:49 Steve Jacobs says: 1. Give us more mchuas -- gateways into projects. 2. Identify projects that profs care about. 15:31:20 ...it's like frontline helpdesk support, almost. We need more somebodies standing by the phone. 15:32:44 Karlie describes how one can escalate "please get in touch with this developer" up the "people who know people" chain in a project. 15:33:42 Greg describing a student in Steve's class who, from the outside, looks less productive (isn't writing code, is making a design and asking for feedback) 15:34:00 but he's going about things the right way; he's figuring out the use case, he's asking for thoughts... 15:34:09 he says "ah, I just have feedback from this guy named Walter" 15:34:13 and everyone else has running code 15:34:29 Greg explains that "walter" is "walter bender, head of sugar labs" 15:34:36 and the student is in mild shock. yay teachable moments! 15:35:12 how do we expose these kinds of contributions as valuable? 15:39:16 LUNCH BREAK 15:39:16 #endmeeting