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

[Seah Hong Yee <hongyee@polyscientific.com.my>]

On Friday 25 July 2003 1:22 pm, Dinesh Nair wrote:
> 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.

We have plenty of IT degree but can anyone really think of a university 
offering pure breed CS? 

>
> 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


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