Hi, all; We had an interesting chat during the barcamp at ACNA2015 discussing ideas for spreading the word about open source. A few folks mentioned that it would be a good idea to partner with local universities to do talks/programs/etc. This sounded like an interesting idea so I squirreled it away in the back of my mind to be revisited after I settled back into the not-apachecon-routine... Interestingly enough, the day I got back from ApacheCon, a former professor (and mentor of mine) had asked if I would be willing to send the head of the IS program a letter of recommendation to accompany his nomination for an award. I mentioned the idea of doing something with the university regarding open source and introducing students to the idea in the P.S. of the email... Well, one conversation led to another and now I find myself teaching a credited class about open source in the fall.
I think this is really neat and exciting but a challenge at the same time. Since the idea was planted in my head w/ the ASF, I thought it would be a good idea to float the question here to ask, "What would go in a college class about open source?" I think I can work through a syllabus, but I'd love to hear suggestions from those who have been involved in the ASF longer than my 4-ish years. Here are some of the ideas I have in mind for things to cover: *What IS open source? The history/birth of the movement. *Source control with Subversion/GIT/? *Bug tracking *Mailing lists/IRC/communication tools *Participating in an open source community *Lab(s) where we create a repository and commit/work through examples of using the tools *Guest speaker: How we make money with Open Source *Guest speaker: The Apache way (of course!) *Guest speaker: Why I trust open source software in my production environment *Guest speaker: Why NOT open source (?) *Popular open source licenses - discussion around each *??? I've only been on this list since ApacheCon this year, so I'm not sure what areas (if any) I would have commit access to in the community project, but I am more than willing to provide the materials I create as part of the class for those similarly interested in putting on such a program. P.S. I'm in the process of mining http://community.apache.org/speakers/slides.html for additional ideas, too... -- Daniel Ruggeri
