Okay, so we've been doing a pretty good job of promoting the *use* of Open Source software among the student body here at BYU. Over the last little while, I've been thinking about all of the *development* talent that we have floating around in the EE and the CS department (okay, and the Physics department too, but the EE and CS folks tend to write more code...). Students have plenty of opportunity to work on cool class projects, but very few of those projects actually get distributed under the GPL. In reality, a lot of these projects are great ideas, but they don't make it much farther than a meager report and a grade in a class. I think that one reason why this is so is because few students bother to think about releasing their code under the GPL, or they don't know where to start in order to get their code ``out there'' into the world.
We need to be doing more to help these students understand the world
of Open Source software, and we should be encouraging them to
contribute to the pool of Open Source software wherever
possible. Maybe we could start with a page on the UUG site that
details Open Source contributions by students at BYU. We can get
posters on the walls of the stairwells featuring student projects that
are released under the GPL (and where to go to download them). We
could even have a club meeting on ``Open Source Development'' where we
talk about autoconf, README's, licensing, SourceForge, Freshmeat,
creating and applying patches, development mailing lists, and the
whole sha-bang.
We can also encourage professors to cover Open Source development and
the GPL in their classes, suggesting to students that they release
their code for their projects under the GPL, to involve the worldwide
Open Source development community in their efforts. I can't see how
this can do anything other than enhance the image of our university
and give our students broader exposure to the real world of software
development, while contributing to the pool of Free Software in
existence.
Mike
--
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Michael Halcrow | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Internet Security Research Lab | Dept. of Comp. Science
| Brigham Young University
Most people aren't thought about after |
they're gone. "I wonder where Mike got |
the plutonium" is better than what most |
get. |
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