“Can Professors Teach Open Source?” The answer is a resounding yes. In fact, TeachingOpenSource.org has written a book that work pretty much in the same way as any other open source software project – improvements, technically known as patches, are very much welcome.
The textbook has a foreword by Greg DeKoenigsberg, a Senior Community Architect at Red Hat. He was the founder and first chairman of the Fedora Project Board, the governance body for the Fedora Project, an open source software project.
The textbook team hopes to change the scenario in the academe wherein the computer science professors feel limited in teaching open source, especially when they have not been doing a lot of it, themselves. It is noteworthy, however, that universities and students are getting increasingly more exposed to open source.
The writers hope for this textbook to guide “a whole generation of students who want to learn how to become better software engineers, the open source way.” The open source textbook team has a solid reason for encouraging the academe to keep up with open source developments and thereby influence its students into doing the same. In the words of DeKoenigsberg, “The skills required to succeed in an open source software project are the exact same skills required to succeed in any large software project.”
This textbook is not only for those in the academe to patch and use. It is for everyone interested in open source and has a desire to contribute to the success of open source projects.
Related Links:
Teaching Open Source Official Website
Fedora Project
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