[ossig] Re: [myoss] University curriculum for OSS?

[Dinesh Nair <dinesh@alphaque.com>]

On Fri, 25 Jul 2003, Loke KS wrote:

> There was some talk earlier about universities not teaching about OSS,
> etc, etc... So if you were to plan a one semester subject on OSS, what

i'd rather universities teach the principles of computer science (for the
technical subjects) and then draw in analogies and examples from closed
source and open source work where applicable. i think the main issue is
our universities are churning out product training grads instead of
computer scientists.

however, one or two courses may be open source specific, especially as it
comes to development philosophies, licensing and intellectual property
protection. IP and licensing is one area which i think is critical for
budding technologists to know, yet is not taught anywhere in the
curriculum.

> 0. Origins of  Free Software and OSS
> 1. Philosophy of OSS
> 2. Legal aspects of OSS

i'd cover all of this as a 4-unit single semester course in the 3rd
semester (assuming a 8-semester degree programme). within this course, i'd
stress the above topics as well as draw the parallels and differences
between licensing of the GPL, BSD as well as common closed source EULAs.
i'd have guest lecturers come in and talk about the philosophy as well as
benefits bits, to make it interesting and less dry. this would also be a
prerequisite for the licesing/IP course in the 6th semester.

> 3. OSS development model
> 4. Tools of OSS.

this would cover the development philosophies, cathedral vs bazaar as well
as covering the different open source dev models. think how linux kernel
and freebsd is developed, for example. they both follow the bazaar model,
but there's a marked difference in development strategies and
methodologies.

then, i'd suggest an additional course on IP and licensing in the 6th
semester. this may need to be taught by someone with legal and IP
expertise, instead of a computer science professor. many computer science
graduates still do not understand the difference between a patent and a
copyright, or even what constitutes derived works for example. the course
should include a primer on the process and methodology needed to copyright
or to patent any new innovation.

the technical bits of OSS, i.e. kernel scheduling models, SMP, file
systems et al should be generic and form a part of the Operating Systems
course. the good part about this is that you can use linux to illustrate
the concepts of a modern operating system in practice. (yes, tanenbaum
would probably have a fit if he found out about this)

for the course on tcp/ip, i'd use apache as an excellent example of how
incoming tcp connections are handled and managed.

Regards,                           /\_/\   "All dogs go to heaven."
dinesh@alphaque.com                (0 0)    http://www.alphaque.com/
+==========================----oOO--(_)--OOo----==========================+
| for a in past present future; do                                        |
|   for b in clients employers associates relatives neighbours pets; do   |
|   echo "The opinions here in no way reflect the opinions of my $a $b."  |
| done; done                                                              |
+=========================================================================+


------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe: send mail to ossig-request@mncc.com.my
with "unsubscribe ossig" in the body of the message