Presentation
for NYLF/TechPresenter: Luke Myers
Brief Description: An introduction to student involvement in the open source community. Will cover joining a project, beginning a new project, and spreading the 'open' philosophy in local businesses and schools.
Equipment/Supplies Needed: None.
Description and Outline of Topic: Involvement in Open Source
I. Open Source Explained
A. The difference between open
and
closed (proprietary) software
B. Myths
1. Open software is inferior
2. Closed software is inferior
3. Anyone can contribute and,
therefore, there are likely to be holes or bugs in the code
4. It is impossible to make a
profit
with free software
C. Why FLOSS (Free/Libre/Open
Source
Software) is viable in the businesses environment
1. Free as in freedom
a. Companies can charge for
software
b. Consulting and other
subscription-based charges
2. Developer success stories
a. Red Hat (Fedora Core, RH
Enterprise Linux)
b. Novell (SuSE, Novell
Enterprise
Linux)
c. IBM (Anything you can
imagine,
honestly)
d. Sun Microsystems
(OpenOffice.org)
e. Apple (OpenDarwin)
3. End-User success stories
a. Casas Bahia
b. Orbitz
c. Fox SportsLine
d. Government
i. Munich, Chicago, other cities
ii. Brazil (yes, the whole
country)
D. How all this applies to
students
II. Becoming familiar with the
community A. Wealth of choices
B. Finding the right project
1. Interests
2. Abilities
a. Current abilities
b. Mentors, developing new
abilities
3. Time
4. My own experiences with
choosing
an open source project to contribute to
a. The Lingucomponent of
OpenOffice.org
b. How I found Lingucomponent
C. Joining the project
1. Joining a mailing list
a. Introducing yourself
b. Becoming a regular
c. Professionalism
D. Contributing to the project
1. Offering patches/new code
2. Helping other new members to
the
community
III. When current projects do not fit
your needs A. When to start your own project
1. If there is a clear need for
something that is not present in a current project
2. Asking for support in your
current
project first
3. My own experiences with
beginning
the ConjuGNU project
B. Starting your own project
1. Finding a home for your
project
a. Choosing between Savanah,
SourceForge, etc.
b. The application
c. Tips for acceptance
2. Encouraging growth
a. Making a website
b. Starting an email list or
forum
c. Friends, etc.
C. Continuing with your project
IV. “Marketing” A. Find something that needs to
be
done in your school or in a local business that could be done more
effectively with FLOSS
B. Showing the benefits of the
open
product
1. Demonstrations
2. When to stop, what not to do
C. Convincing the administration
D. Deploying the solution
E. Examples
1. QEMU in schools
2. OpenOffice.org for
neighbors/relatives
3. Club
demonstrations/discussions
a. LiveCD Linux distributions
b. Starting a discussion on
FLOSS
V. Questions 