17:37:51 #startmeeting 17:37:51 Meeting started Wed Jun 9 17:37:51 2010 UTC. The chair is posse_projector. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot. 17:37:51 Useful Commands: #action #agreed #halp #info #idea #link #topic. 17:37:56 #topic logging bots 17:39:26 .fas mchua 17:39:26 posse_projector: mchua 'Mel Chua' 17:39:33 * pfroehlich thinks zodbot rox 17:39:35 .fasinfo mchua 17:39:36 posse_projector: User: mchua, Name: Mel Chua, email: mel@redhat.com, Creation: 2008-09-26, IRC Nick: mchua, Timezone: US/Eastern, Locale: en, Extension: 5115368, GPG key ID: , Status: active 17:39:40 posse_projector: Unapproved Groups: gitspin-kickstarts 17:39:44 posse_projector: Approved Groups: +gitfedora-web bzrpython-fedora @fedoraldc @marketing +web fedorabugs packager @gitfedora-insight-theme @gitfedora-zikula sysadmin-test ambassadors designteam giteducation cla_fedora cla_done 17:39:51 Walter: This line had problem: self.button.set_label(_("Reset")) 17:41:51 Mahadev: is there a import gettext statement at the top? 17:41:53 mchua is explaining FOSS conferences now 17:42:03 Mahadev: if not, grab it from abacus.py 17:54:20 Okay, time for me to transcribe everything I just said. 17:54:54 #info Logging bots sometimes sit in IRC channels and take notes. This is nice, since it saves work following up on meetings. 17:54:57 For example: 17:54:58 #link http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/teachingopensource/2010-04-27/weekly_posse_meeting.2010-04-27-19.02.html 17:55:13 Walter: That did the trick. Super thanks. Need help with sending as patch. 17:55:16 #info We've been logging this POSSE, too. Here are example logs from Monday: 17:55:20 #link http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/teachingopensource/2010-06-07/posse_worcester_-_monday.2010-06-07-12.34.log.html 17:55:24 #link http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/teachingopensource/2010-06-07/posse_worcester_-_monday.2010-06-07-12.34.html 17:55:39 #info We also log things that we want to preserve, like classroom/tutorial sessions on different topics. 17:55:42 #link https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Classroom 17:56:03 #info By the way, you can usually get someone to teach an informal/impromptu class on any topic - useful if you want to pick up a new skill, or your students need to learn something. 17:56:27 #info Common practice is to agree on a date/time/IRC-channel between the students and the teacher, then email that to a public mailing list (for the project) so others can join in if they wan. 17:56:38 #info Here's a sample classroom session on Packaging. 17:56:40 #link http://www.sparsebrain.com/2010/06/fedora-packaging-classroom-session.html 17:57:06 #info Logging bots come in many different versions, and are often open source - you can use a project's existing bot, or you can run your own on your own server. 17:57:10 #link https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Zodbot 17:57:19 #info Zodbot is Fedora's bot, and its commands are documented in the link above. 17:57:37 #chair mchua 17:57:37 Current chairs: mchua posse_projector 17:57:59 ...oh, shoot. I think I have to copypaste this log so all the infos and whatnot get preserved. 17:58:03 Er... 17:58:05 one second. 17:59:08 Apologies for the imminent flood. 17:59:10 #info Logging bots sometimes sit in IRC channels and take notes. This is nice, since it saves work following up on meetings. For example: 17:59:13 #link http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/teachingopensource/2010-04-27/weekly_posse_meeting.2010-04-27-19.02.html 17:59:17 #info We've been logging this POSSE, too. Here are example logs from Monday: 17:59:20 #link http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/teachingopensource/2010-06-07/posse_worcester_-_monday.2010-06-07-12.34.log.html 17:59:24 #link http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/teachingopensource/2010-06-07/posse_worcester_-_monday.2010-06-07-12.34.html 17:59:27 #info We also log things that we want to preserve, like classroom/tutorial sessions on different topics. 17:59:31 #link https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Classroom 17:59:33 #info By the way, you can usually get someone to teach an informal/impromptu class on any topic - useful if you want to pick up a new skill, or your students need to learn something. 17:59:37 #info Common practice is to agree on a date/time/IRC-channel between the students and the teacher, then email that to a public mailing list (for the project) so others can join in if they wan. 17:59:42 #info Here's a sample classroom session on Packaging. 17:59:45 #link http://www.sparsebrain.com/2010/06/fedora-packaging-classroom-session.html 17:59:48 #info Logging bots come in many different versions, and are often open source - you can use a project's existing bot, or you can run your own on your own server. 17:59:52 #link https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Zodbot 17:59:54 #info Zodbot is Fedora's bot, and its commands are documented in the link above. 17:59:58 there we go. 18:00:00 #info You can also look at all the meeting logs that have ever been taken in a particular channel - for instance, "I wonder what my student teams have been talking about in their meetings." 18:00:05 #link http://meetbot.fedoraproject.org/teachingopensource/ 18:00:16 #info IRC bots can sometimes also do non-meeting functions, like telling you information about a contributor. 18:00:21 .fasinfo mchua 18:00:22 mchua: User: mchua, Name: Mel Chua, email: mel@redhat.com, Creation: 2008-09-26, IRC Nick: mchua, Timezone: US/Eastern, Locale: en, Extension: 5115368, GPG key ID: , Status: active 18:00:25 mchua: Unapproved Groups: gitspin-kickstarts 18:00:29 mchua: Approved Groups: +gitfedora-web bzrpython-fedora @fedoraldc @marketing +web fedorabugs packager @gitfedora-insight-theme @gitfedora-zikula sysadmin-test ambassadors designteam giteducation cla_fedora cla_done 18:00:51 #info For instance, I just typed ".fasinfo mchua" into the channel - you can read the full log at this timestamp to see the output that produced (it spewed out some info about what I do within Fedora). 18:00:56 #info Conclusion: Bots are useful. 18:00:58 #topic events 18:01:35 #info FOSS projects often have in-person gatherings - major projects tend to have one (or more) large get-togethers per year (several hundred people from all over the world fly in to collaborate, talk, etc) 18:01:54 #info They're usually (1) free, (2) incredibly informal - look up the words "unconference" and "barcamp" - and (3) a lot of fun. 18:02:19 #info They are particularly cool/welcoming to students, as a way to meet folks they've worked with remotely face-to-face, and as an opportunity to present their work to a community outside their school. 18:02:45 #info Here are a few examples of events FOSS projects have - if you're thinking of getting involved in a community, one good way to do that is to see if you can go to an event. 18:02:49 #link http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon 18:02:52 #link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJZQJRpC2_0 18:02:56 #link http://www.guadec.org/index.php/guadec/index 18:03:00 #link https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UDSKarmic 18:03:04 #link http://akademy.kde.org/ 18:03:13 #info ...these are some examples. There are many more. 18:03:18 #topic Hackathons 18:03:39 #info FOSS projects also often have hackathons - bringing people together to work on something for a few days. Different projects do them in different ways - in Fedora, we call them FADs, or Fedora Activity Days. 18:03:43 #link https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FAD 18:03:54 #link It's not just for code development; one can do them for, say, Marketing. 18:03:58 #link http://www.braincache.de/wp/2010/03/14/fedora-mktg-fad-2010-day-1/ 18:04:01 #link https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing_FAD_2010 18:04:25 #info They're very informal... here are some pictures - note the folks from all over the world, all backgrounds and ages. 18:04:28 #link http://www.flickr.com/photos/7849458@N03/4430487810/in/pool-fedora_marketing 18:04:33 #link http://www.flickr.com/photos/7849458@N03/4430488572/in/pool-fedora_marketing 18:04:36 #link http://www.flickr.com/photos/7849458@N03/4430479760/in/pool-fedora_marketing 18:05:28 #info Schools can host hackathons. For instance, if you want to get your students together for a 3-day weekend to sprint on some interesting piece of code, or to assemble a test case system, or etc - and it would be perfect if you could only have (1) pizza and (2) these two developers who know a lot about Python (or whatever) come join you for the weekend, then ask if you can host a FAD - there's often funding. 18:05:43 #info This is not unique to Fedora; other large FOSS projects have this notion of hackfests as well. 18:05:53 #info In general, there are resources out there, and they're informal to request and easy to get - just ask! 18:06:00 ...and now we resume our normal work. 18:06:03 #topic Back to hacking 18:10:13 * sdziallas notes that we actually had a Fedora Classroom Session on packaging Sugar Activities earlier this year. 18:10:21 * sdziallas wonders if he has chair-fu. 18:10:25 #chair sdziallas 18:10:25 Current chairs: mchua posse_projector sdziallas 18:10:27 Yes. 18:10:29 actually, 18:10:31 mchua: thanks :) 18:10:36 #link https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Classroom/Packaging_Sugar_Activities 18:10:57 #chair pfroehlich walterbender aparna mihaela kis gpollice kwurst 18:10:57 Current chairs: aparna gpollice kis kwurst mchua mihaela pfroehlich posse_projector sdziallas walterbender 18:11:03 (others who want it, please holler) 18:11:14 the interesting part is that we've a GIT repository documenting the walkthrough 18:11:18 (but y'all can do action items and whatnot now) 18:11:18 #link http://git.sugarlabs.org/projects/sugar-activity-packaging-walkthrough/repos/mainline 18:11:41 #info Fedora Classroom Session on Activity Packaging took place; links as above 18:11:42 pbrobinson: ^^ activity packaging classroom session, possibly useful for teaching mihaela and kis later on 18:12:02 sdziallas: actually, this is the sort of thing that may make a glorious techtalk-pse test run. 18:12:15 since that's presentation software made for slides + shell scripts/terminal commands. 18:12:45 mchua: ayup, that sounds right to me! 18:13:15 * sdziallas wonders if he should look at ianweller 18:13:31 ianweller just packaged techtalk (and has been singing its praises) 18:13:50 #link http://rwmj.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/tech-talk-pse-1-0-0-released/ 18:14:01 for reference to others about what we are geeking out about. 18:16:23 * mchua looks around for maddog 18:17:01 mihaela: Do you have his phone # or any way we can find out where he is? I thought he'd be here by now, he said by 2 - want to make sure he's not lost 18:17:41 * ianweller looks up, reads, and then looks away again 18:17:58 ianweller: :D 18:18:02 Ah, maddog is on his way (says his email). 18:25:03 \nickname_afk 18:25:23 afk 18:26:44 Mahadev: You likely want "/nick Mahadev_afk" (without the quotes) 18:30:48 Folks, info on the talk maddog is about to give is in your inboxes, it came through the posse-worcester list. 18:33:23 #topic maddog's talk 18:33:52 * mchua will try to transcribe 18:34:28 #info How long have people been using FOSS? Probably 40 years (or whatever subset of that you've been alive), even if you didn't know it. 18:34:40 #info Title: FOSS teaches you twice or three times 18:35:25 #info Jon "Maddog" Hall - executive director of Linux International 18:37:18 #info Goals of education - thinking electorate, workforce, lifetime knowledge, lifelong learners. 18:38:02 #info Maddog believes it's important to create local jobs and local businesses - and FOSS can do this. 18:38:42 #info maddog also believes FOSS creates a balance of trade, and makes a country more secure - able to rely on its own work. Reduces piracy. 18:39:35 #info If you can't afford to buy a $100 software license, you're just going to steal that software. 13:40 <@mchua> #info Back to national security - imagine the Chinese military putting American (Microsoft) code in their planes. Er... yeah. 13:40 <@mchua> #info Also - what if MS were to go out of business? Then a lot of folks are just plain out of luck. 13:41 <@mchua> #info How many people remember Digital Equipment Corporation? Apollo? ? 13:41 <@mchua> #info A lot of software rots along the way - without access and ability to fix the code, you can't do anything about it. 13:43 <@mchua> #info Back when I (maddog) was young, software was written and passed around by hobbyists, amateurs - "I'm not really a programmer," just doing this for fun - sharing software, sharing modifications. 13:43 <@mchua> #info There was a social structure of sharing this stuff, you didn't really think about making money from software. 13:44 -!- michelled [~michelled@142.150.154.101] has joined #teachingopensource 13:44 -!- zodbot [~supybot@fedora/bot/zodbot] has quit [Ping timeout: 258 seconds] 13:47 <@mchua> #info FOSS, for students, lets you (1) make interesting software as a non-solo contributor, on a team, on real products, and (2) have a portfolio of that work and that collaboration with others before graduation. 13:50 <@mchua> #info John Lions, from the Uni of South Wales, believed in training students by showing them good code by good coders. He documented v6 of Unix - commented/annotated kernel - for education usage, but was blocked for publication by AT&T. 13:51 <@mchua> #info However, this was *such* a good resource that it was secretly photocopied and passed around - there are 10th and more generations of photocopies (copies of copies of copies, etc) being passed around. 13:52 <@mchua> #info If this had just been FOSS, the whole absurdity of having to get around that would have been avoided. 13:53 <@mchua> #info FOSS has a complete CS curriculum. For instance, operating systems: linux, *bsd, - multiuser, 32bit, 64bit... there are multiple variants of almost everything in FOSS. 13:55 <@mchua> #info You also get to work across multiple platforms, avoiding learning specific things like "Intelism" (shortcuts you can take with Intel processors that give you problems when you try to port to other processors). You learn to step back and look at general architectures instead of being blindly tied to one. 13:56 <@mchua> #info FOSS programs are often modular and can have chunks swapped in and out - easy to break down sections of problems/projects for classes to look at. 13:57 <@mchua> #info maddog is detailing different features (64 vs 32 bit, multithreaded and multiuser architectures, etc) that are good for students to be exposed to and explore. 13:58 <@mchua> #info Another area is research - you may be told by a company that "if you work on our product, it'll benefit ALL OUR CUSTOMERS!" 13:59 <@mchua> #info ...however, after you make that code, it belongs to that company, not to the commons - so why not use FOSS instead? 13:59 -!- zodbot [~supybot@fedora/bot/zodbot] has joined #teachingopensource 13:59 <@mchua> #info Places to learn Networking with FOSS - tcp/ip, etc... also security, graphics (X, opengl), clustered systems. 14:01 <@mchua> #info By hacking on FOSS projects, you'll learn how to generate bugfixes and patches for customers. 14:01 <@mchua> #info And sometimes people will just pay you directly to do that bugfixing and patching for them. 14:01 -!- aparna [~liveuser@wsc-209-239-219-99.worcester.edu] has quit [Quit: Ex-Chat] 14:02 -!- kevix [~kevin@pool-141-157-231-41.ny325.east.verizon.net] has joined #teachingopensource 14:04 <@mchua> #info Not just software - electrical engineering (spice, circuit simulators, arduino, etc) 14:06 <@mchua> #info Not just CS - look at social studies! Statistics, geographical info (openstreetmap, opengis), dynamics of communities. 14:07 <@mchua> #info And intellectual property law! And Project Gutenberg's massive collection of books! 14:09 <@mchua> #info And business practices! Service-based businesses thrive in FOSS - other examples of service-based busineses are surgery and law. 14:09 <@mchua> #info And for creative works - such as musicians. They entertain, they play music - they're not "money producers." Music is a service business. 14:17 <@mchua> #info FOSS is not just CS. Look at Creative Commons for the arts. 14:17 <@mchua> #info Look at the scale of FOSS projects - 230k+ projects and 2.3M+ developers on SourceForge alone. 14:17 <@mchua> #info This is without China, India, LATAM, etc. not having fully come online, even. 14:20 <@mchua> #info Think about how many people in an actual software company are software engineers (as opposed to marketing, design, people who pack the discs in the boxes, etc) and those numbers look even larger - because the SourceForge numbers are *just* engineers. 14:21 <@mchua> #info FOSS is a new (old) model of developing software. When software is free, you pay for service - to copy/distribute, to get features you need when you need them, to integrate into your setup, to train. 14:24 -!- Mahadev [~liveuser@wsc-209-239-205-117.worcester.edu] has quit [Quit: Ex-Chat] 14:25 < kevix> debconf 10 in NYC. july 25-aug 7 14:25 <@mchua> #info To learn FOSS, you have to teach... distributed development, licensing, standard-writing, writing code to standards, how to motivate devs, how to find and engage communities, how to innovate, how to evaluate/size customer needs 14:26 -!- walterbender [~chatzilla@wsc-209-239-219-83.worcester.edu] has quit [Quit: ChatZilla 0.9.86 [Firefox 3.6.3/20100423140709]] 14:29 <@mchua> #info Groups of interest: Free Standards Group (freestandards.org) 14:29 <@mchua> #info Linux Professional Institute (lpi.org) 14:29 <@mchua> #info Linux training (lintraining.com) 14:29 <@mchua> #info Open hardware: simputer.org, solarpc.com, open telephony 14:35 <@mchua> #info You can use FOSS to solve all sorts of interesting problems - image rendering, modeling seismic disturbances, virtual reality, calculating financial reserves... 14:38 <@mchua> #info "How many of you saw the movie Titanic?" RENDERED ON FOSS! 14:38 <@mchua> #info ...and Matrix! and Shrek! Harry Potter! Lord of the Rings! (maddog quoting the very large number of FOSS-running processors that rendered these movies.) 14:39 < kevix> I think that would be ILM and WETA digital 14:40 <@mchua> #info Lots of pictures of massive clusters and statistics about said clusters are now scrolling across the slides. Mmm, supercomputers. 14:41 <@mchua> #info You could take individual machines in a lab and turn them into a supercomputer - same room, same hardware, just add a bit of software - and BAM! Supercomputer lab. 14:41 <@mchua> #info You can also tinker with embedded systems in FOSS. Modular kernel == easy for embedded! Also, royalty-free. 14:42 <@mchua> #info Example: OpenMoko phone (sort of out of date, but some folks are still using it.) 14:45 <@mchua> #info "Create hackers, not crackers." - People who build things and make things, not destroy them. 14:46 <@mchua> #info maddog is describing a case study of work with a group of high schoolers - "Hackerteen" program that taught students about tech using FOSS; they're now employed and in some cases teaching other students. 14:46 <@mchua> #info Resource: http://www.linuxfordevices.com/ 14:46 <@mchua> #info Resource: http://ftacademy.org/ 14:48 <@mchua> #info maddog also has a longer list of cool projects (misterhouse, etc) that students may find interesting. 14:48 <@mchua> #info A challenge for the profs in this room: find your brightest students and get them to propose embedded projects, then develop them - EE/CS partnership - and see if they can get into the market. 14:50 <@mchua> #info maddog bringing up case studies of students - very young kernel developers, consultants, entrepreneurs, company presidents - that started because of the opportunities FOSS provided. 14:50 < kevix> arduino, wiring 14:56 <@mchua> #info Well-meaning misconceptions: "Software that costs $0" != "Free Software" 14:56 <@mchua> #info Misconception: "Everyone uses our platform!" (yes, but you control and bottleneck it.) 14:57 <@mchua> #info (there were more misconceptions on the slides, but they went by too fast for me to transcribe) 14:59 <@mchua> #info FOSS can also run school infrastructure - for instance, http://sagu2.solis.coop.br - can handle entrance/placement exams, room scheduling, financial/accounting systems, human resources, etc. for schools. 14:59 <@mchua> #info Other resources: Moodle, K12LTSP, Free Technology Academy, MIT (and others) Open Courseware 15:00 <@mchua> #info finally... it's fun! 15:00 <@mchua> #info Questions? 15:03 < kevix> canonical worked on schooltools, not sure if they are active 15:07 <@mchua> Closing log now, since the talk is basically wrapped up, and ianweller needs to process logs. 15:07 <@mchua> #endmeeting