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Articles Introducing College Students to Open Source?

Posted by Cliff on from the gateway-publications dept.

Michael Cray asks: "I'm an MIS student and a pro-Linux / Open Source guy. I've been trying to find an article, that serves as an introduction to Open Source, which my Professor could use in class. To me, Open Source is more philosophical than technical. Since this is an IDS/MIS course called 'Management of Information Systems', the professor picks articles from journals like the Harvard Review to be used in class. So if you are a teacher, what article would you use to present 'open source' in a college class room?" What articles have you found that would serve as a good introduction to Open Source? Documents like The Cathedral and the Bazaar and the GPL would be good intro pieces, but are there other pieces that might flesh out these two as an introduction to Open Source?

5 of 14 comments (clear)

  1. Sources by Shwag · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here is a nice open source timeline:

    http://www.linuxcertification.com/manpage/timeli ne.php3

    The history of the open source initiative:

    http://www.opensource.org/docs/history.html

    Richard Stallman - 15 Years of Freedom

    http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=1999- 03-17-003-10-NW-LF

    This important article from 98' is what introduced me to open source. This is when netscape was releasing their source.
    http://dir.salon.com/21st/feature/1998/04/cov_14 feature.html

    How about a textbook!?:

    Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman

    Free as in Freedom: Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software

  2. Re:Mozilla Movie by airuck · · Score: 3

    Revolution OS

    --
    First entomology, then virology, and finally bioinformatics systems. Bugs follow me wherever I go.
  3. a few ideas by napoleonin · · Score: 4, Informative

    I graduated in May with a degree in MIS, and actually encountered a situation similar to yours when I was in school, so here are a few tips:

    The Cathedral and the Bazaar is probably the best (it's also what my class used)

    In general, don't make it into a religious war. MIS students generally are more interested in business than programming, so preaching to them about being able to see the source for everything is largely worthless when you're talking to a crowd that holds dear to "Nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft".

    Instead, if you want to get their attention/interest, put the discussion into terms that interest them - lower cost of ownership, more choice of vendors, etc. If you can't discuss it in a way that they'll find interesting and relevant to what they want to do with their lives, you'll just be wasting your time.

    Don't show them anything/anyone that would help to reinforce the oft-widespread belief that open source advocates are childish and immature.

  4. practicality, not religion by ceejayoz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    To me, Open Source is more philosophical than technical.

    You'd likely be better off presenting it as a practical alternative, not a quasi-religion.

    There are good, legitimate, practical reasons for using OSS - don't gloss over them in favor of dogma.

  5. Setting Up Shop by tariquesani · · Score: 3, Informative

    Setting Up Shop by Frank Hecker is an excellent intro to various Open Source business models