OSDDP: Involving Students With Open Source Docs

cel4145 writes "The Professional Writing Program at Purdue University recently began the Open Source Development and Documentation Project (OSDDP) where students and instructors across multiple sections of business and technical writing are producing documentation for and about open source applications (see the press release or a mirror). The community and project are modeled after the open source development model and based on service learning principles. For example, students are already working on end user documentation and case study analysis for Drupal and market research and analysis for OpenOffice. Completed texts will be published using a Creative Commons license."

Comments

Simpler is Better, Plus Liquid Oxygen Bonus

[pipingguy]

Isn't Perdue where George Goble teaches?

He's an engineering and BBQ legend that had to remove his site about lighting and enhancing flames with liquid oxygen.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot that open source education thingie is probably a good idea. I'd have to buy a Linux for Dummies book and then look for the "if you are still too dense..." part.

Re:Simpler is Better, Plus Liquid Oxygen Bonus

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't Perdue where George Goble teaches?

Actually, he doesn't teach here. He's a systems administrator for the engineering computer network. However, I do believe he has patents on refrigeration compounds and equipment, so the engineering part is pretty accurate.

We use a hand-built refrigerator unit he built to keep sodas at a cool 32 degrees F in our EE lounge.

Re:License

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

There is not ONE Creative Commons license, there are many Creative Common licenses. Some are more like a BSD style license than an GPL.

That is they are more free.

This is a GoodThing(TM)

[DLR]

The biggest weakness of OpenSource in general is the documentation. And while no one can argue that you can get more in depth documentation from the author of the software, most of that documentation is difficult to read at best, and so totally obscure that it would be easier to just read the source and figure out the app at worst. When the programmers write the docs they tend to take too much for granted. They'll tell you about the leaves on the trees and the patterns on the bark, but neglect to tell you what type of tree they're telling you about, so to speak. This is why most companies have a different team writing the docs than wrote the application.

Having said that, I'm very glad to see someone addressing the need for documentation on OpenSource software. If Joe User can grab a manual (even a virtual one) and read up on how to use (for example) Open Office he's far more likely to try to use it if the latest commercial offering is out of his budget. And if some members of Management happen to try reading some decent documentation on a given package they might be persuaded to run a "test copy" at work as well. This shortcoming (the lack of good docs) has probably been one of the larger stumbling blocks to the widespread adaptation of Open Source software by business, and this is a novel way to get some people to work on this area for free.

Re:License

[metlin]

Actually that is not necessarily always true lately.

For instance, these days submissions in Physics happen by people writing a paper, and uploading it to arXiv -- where it gets peer reviewed and you get inputs. And more importantly, you establish in public that you were the first person to come up with FOO.

Not only that, the process is a lot more open than it used to be. Although some J Random dude at Physical Review can (and will) reject your paper for unknown reasons, it's quite unlikely that would happen if it has received excellent reviews after it's put up at arXiv. The process is a whole lot more transparent.

And since only the final editions go to the journals, the paper is still available at arXiv. And arXiv has been working on making several other publications available online - however, this has only begun for papers from and after 1992, so that is indeed a problem.

However, although arXiv does have a CS section, it's not frequented as much as the physics or mathematics sections. Which is a sad thing, IMHO.

And oh btw, in arXiv - the authors own the copyrights, so no question of the journal asking the arXiv to retract the papers. In fact, sometimes authors post their papers after acceptance for a journal publication.

Not too sure about conference publications, though.

OK, I’ll bite

[Pan T. Hose]

Because Lawrence Lessig is cool Stanford Professor that argued in front of the Supreme Court about copyright extensions, and Richard Stallman is hippy-looking MIT drop-out that argues with geeks about Linux really being GNU/Linux?

I know this is a trendy thing here to insult Richard Stallman, but please at least stick to facts. First of all, he is not an "MIT drop-out." Back in 1971, as an 18 years old freshman at Harvard University he was hired by MIT as a hacker in the AI Lab. If working as a teenager in The Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in the early '70s is not "cool" than I seriously don't know what is.

Second of all, it is slightly more complicated than "Linux really being GNU/Linux." You might want to read the GNU/Linux naming controversy article on Wikipedia for a good start. Do you remember the Seattle Times interview with Linus Torvalds which was posted here just a week ago? This is the first sentence of the opening paragraph: "Linus Torvalds [pronounced LEE-nus] started a revolution of sorts in the computer industry when he created the Linux operating system and decided to share it with fellow programmers on the Internet."

The problem is that Torvalds didn't start any revolution in 1991. The revolution had already been happening becuase that very operating system had been being written since Linus was 14 years old. Eight years later he wrote the final piece, the kernel, and finally made GNU usable.

This was a great achievemnt. But the fact that taking an 8 years old project and renaming it after one's name can often start flame wars should not be surprising to anyone. Do you remember the recent outrage with CherryOS and PearPC? There are a lot of strong emotions involved where one puts many years of hard work into a project. But that is even not the most important thing here.

It is not important whose name is on the project. It is not important who started it, but it is very important why. The GNU project was started because of some ideals. Those very ideals made it possible. And those ideals made it needed in the first place. When people read such intervies and get the impression that Torvalds wrote the entire operating system starting a revolution and don't even know that GNU has ever existed, they read "Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary" Torvald's autobiography and get the impression that it is all about fun. Meanwhile, the real revolution has started because of freedom and nothing else.

And this revolution was not about starting something new, but rather saving something old.

I strongly urge you to read Free as in Freedom written by Sam Williams to know how, when and why the revolution was started. The entire book is released under the GNU Free Documentation License and is available on-line.

Stallman, an MIT hacker in the 1970s, wanted a source code for his printer drivers to fix them. A fellow programmer refused to give it to him because of an NDA. It outraged Stallman who considered it a personal insult and who repeatedly refused to get software which was offered to him for free but with an NDA, alienating himself and making his life as a programmer much harder, because at the end he was pretty much the only person in the AI Lab with no access to all of the proprietary software there.

There are strong emotions involved. There are ideals, fight for freedom at the cost of personal sacrifices. It is not "just for fun." Richard Stallman was not an "MIT drop-out." He r

The Linux Documentation Project - TLDP

[wehe]

There is already The Linux Documentation Project - TLDP, offering many high quality Linux HOWTOs, FAQs and guides in different languages.