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Competition Fosters Next Generation Of Linux Talent
gollum123 writes "Yahoo reports that about 3,000 students from 75 countries registered for the 2004 IBM Linux Scholar Challenge before registration closed Oct. 31, the largest turnout in the competition's history. This year's winners will be revealed in January at LinuxWorld in Boston. Each entry consists of a 1,200-word essay that can describe the solution to one of 29 Linux-related challenges IBM poses as part of the competition. Entrants, who must be enrolled full time at an accredited university, aren't limited to these challenges and can suggest and solve their own problems. The IBM-provided challenges include asking entrants to identify deficiencies in Linux and propose solutions, describe how to build a high-availability application that would provide failover capability across multiple IBM servers, and improve boot time on a Linux-based IBM ThinkPad."
"full time at an accredited university"
That's just wrong. Some of the best programmers and computer folks I ever met, didn't even go to colleges.
Hah, at first glance all I picked up was "Fosters Linux" and I thought "huh, what will the Aussies do next?"
Furthermore, I don't think it makes much sense to award a scholarship to someone who's not in college. Is that so unreasonable?
Second, I can't wait to see the results of this. Should be interesting to see how some of these are solved, and what other interesting challenges people come up with to try to solve.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Im a full time jr in high school and I know more then most about Linux. I probably could of solved at least the thinkpad problem(im writing this on a T40). I will soon be going into college and I could use some extra help from big blue.
Each entry consists of a 1,200-word essay that can describe the solution to one of 29 Linux-related challenges IBM poses as part of the competition...d to these challenges and can suggest and solve their own problems. The IBM-provided challenges include asking entrants to identify deficiencies in Linux and propose solutions
Uninstall Linux and install FreeBSD.
Oops, wait, that's only 5 words. Need another 1,195 to pad it out. Any suggestions?
Improving boot time on a ThinkPad...
Does IBM own the essays, though? This was mentioned with Google's CodeJam thing too - Google stated that they pretty much owned whatever code was submitted and used to solve the problems. ~stephen
Funny thought: isn't this a great way for IBM to get students to do work for free?
Seriously though, the project list reads very much like a wish list of the things they'd like to have but don't want to spend the money on doing themselves.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing (espectially if it leads to some students landing jobs with them). Just struck me as humorus in that "everything's a conspiracy / everyone has a hidden agenda" sort of way.
I don't see how that attitude and position would help the typical young person who wants a rewarding career. I have two boys that will finish their secondary education in the next few years and I could never tell them that some of the brightest people never went to college so don't worry too much about going. My college and graduate degrees have opened doors for me that would have otherwise been closed.
http://www.busyweather.com/
I too believe that you don't always need a college degree to have commanding intelligence. However, I am aware of the real world expectations of the "job market", among other things, and having that degree determines whether artificial barriers are lifted or fortified.
And sometimes it's a shame that someone who can otherwise think on their feet and do the job 10 times around without faltering are constricted, but that's how it goes.
Join the TWIT army now!
and can suggest and solve their own problems
Uninstall Linux and install FreeBSD.
Oops, wait, that's only 5 words. Need another 1,195 to pad it out. Any suggestions?
Well, seems like you chose option b: "suggest your own problem". Unfortunately that one needs more than 1,195 words to solve it.
In most cases I think the people who were able to succeed without secondary education did so by forging their own path. They went out, started their own business, and pursued a dream.
If your boys end up with the same desires and skills, they will likely go the same route and not need their secondary education. However, I think you are doing right in directing them to that education until the stroke of genius occurs.
Not all the hard questions in Linux's future are technical.
To IBM challengees/anyone:
How would you reconcile the need for innovation in Linux and the growing number of patents owned by a smaller and smaller group of large corporations, where these patents undermine the capacity to innovate?
IBM, being the largest patent filer in the United States, probably has a unique perspective on this. Though I am grateful for their support of, and happy for their benefit from, Linux, I must concede that I wonder what will happen when their patent interests conflict with their Linux interests.
I'm starting a new competition. I'm "challenging" 3000 college students to see who can clean my floors the best! The winner gets $20!! Competition my ass.
I don't respond to AC's.
And quite a few very very smart people did go to college (well university).
"That is not dead which can eternal lie...."
Nimheil
What a great way of getting someone to solve your business programming problems on the cheap. :)
As one who met all the eligibility requirements for this competition, I think it would have been nice to have found out about it before the deadline... Maybe next year /. can run an article on it before the fact.
Study a bit more grammar, tell your principal to fuck off in front of several hundred witnesses, and enter college rather than waste a fourth year in high school.
It worked for me. I ended up with a PowerBook and a free ride while my high school friends were being taught history by Bill and Ted.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
I was one of the winners in 2001. I actually like the idea. For those who are ranting about how IBM is getting work done for free and so on, i got to intern at the Linux Technology Center and had a blast there, it was worth it(and yea, the thinkpad was useful too).
Put the kernel in the bios. It's quite doable, so why aren't they doing it? http://www.linuxbios.org/
Webdav support in the Kernel needed to be implimented a year+ ago.
for those that don't know, [WebDAV stands for "Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning". It is a set of extensions to the HTTP protocol which allows users to collaboratively edit and manage files on remote web servers. (shamelessly taken from http://www.webdav.org/)].
there is a tool that will deal with this, and let you use one, its a bit out of date (dang close to a year now) but i had some mixed success (didn't have a use for it then), http://dav.sourceforge.net/
The best way to get young people really intrested in linux is to have games which work hands down better on the linux platform.
I think it should be opened to people who *want* to go to college but need the $$ first. I'm sitting out of college now, (over a year) because I can't afford it and the best job I can find around here is $5.15. Not trolling, but if it's a scholarship, they should make it a rule that rewards are for now or future college use.
I second the notion expressed by someone else, "very well put." I suspect those that go to college do so because of encouragement, personal desire, financing and opportunity. Fortunately, any one or two of these is often enough to make it happen.
No man's an island, unless he's had too much to drink and wets the bed.
Each entry consists of a 1,200-word essay that can describe the solution to one of 29 Linux-related challenges IBM poses as part of the competition.
like... "How to install ATi drivers" ??
"It is better to remain quiet and be thought a fool, then to speak up and remove all doubt."
Surely you meant "than to speak up"?
I am already doing this in my company - it is at a very early stage of implmentation.
The primary premise is that software development is similar to artisanship - where an "artisan" joins work in a fairly junior grade and then learns the ropes from seniors and mentors who actively train their juniors on actual projects - all work is closely supervised with the express aim of maturing the skills of the juniors.
All programmers join as apprentices and have to work their way up by earning the respect of their peers. All code is to be reviewed by seniors/mentors and peers and based on their review, the programmers will advance in grade.
Everyone needs to know programming as well as an additonal skill - be it housekeeping, administration, finance etc so they can take on other roles if needed. In addition to programming, everyone will be associated with one of the additional roles they choose - for instance, you might be a programmer, but you could also be incharge of housekeeping responsibilities.
Everyone is given an opportunity to choose the role in which they would like to work - for instance, people showing interest in marketing will be given the option of joining the marketing team as long as the marketing team is convinced that the person fits that role.
Programmers are taken only based on references from others already in the organization - ofcourse, all this means that the company grows very slowly, but the advantages are that the skill levels are kept very high and people can move to a different division/department at short notice.
Also, everyone in the organization interacts much more with each other and this helps team dynamics.
I guess the work ethic and the general work philosophy is a bit like in a kibutz.
Would like to hear what you guys think of this.
has anyone found a website for the linux challenge?
i've gotten 10 dead links to places it may once have been, but still nothing for the challenge itself.
ps: pathetic.
I'd improve Linux on Thinkpads by releasing bloody drivers for all the obscure subsystems in them!
The best way to do that, something that Windows has had for a while:
Working suspend-to-disk.
The best way to minimize boot time is to never have to do it.
Even if you do not pursue a Computer Science degree, attending a college or university exposes you to a wide range of different philosophies and people. For the IT professional, good people skills is a benefit. As one who works in the systems engineering field, the knowledge and experience I learned in medical school gives me some advantages over my peers. If not but for the experience, college/university is worth it.
Because the trend is away from putting things in the kernel that don't need to be. There are perfectly functional WebDAV servers outside the kernel, so there's no need for it to be in the kernel.
G.I. Bill!
The G.I. Bill helped pay my way through a very good (and expensive) private university. Hell, I be anyone can at least get into the Air Force or Coast Guard! [ducks]
Semper Fi
And happy 229th Marines!
commanding intelligence for the most part is almost independent of college. By high school, those that have commanding intellignece have pretty much established the fact that they do. college is about exposure. It is not just about exposure to professors and their experiences but real knowledge. A high school dropout in the real world is usually limited to silly books at borders. The sheer amount of books and journals that I obtain from my science and engineering library is definitely something to envy for a curious mind without access to them.
------ Curiosity killed the cat. {satisfaction brought it back | it didn't die ignorant | lack of it is killing mankind
Spelling errors don't really register with me anymore until some loser starts to talk about intelligence, structured programming or, in this case, the value of attending a university.
Forget being AC. It's open season on these idiots as far as I'm concerned.
Laws are for people with no friends.
And when can I start work? Seriously, I like this idea.
" IBM created its program in 2001 to drum up enthusiasm among students worldwide in Linux and open-source software."
It sounds like some of these "theoretical" challenges may be issues that they have in-house, and are looking for some free help to solve.
In 2001, post-bubble, I went on a job interview with a large, not-to-be-named corporate entity and was asked how I would approach / solve a few issues that they were having at the time. Wanting the job, I foolishly gave a couple insightful replies.
Did I get the job? No. Were the solutions implemented? A friend of mine who works in that group said that the hiring manager (he with whom I interviewed) suddenly had some great insight on their current problems, and proposed solutions that sounded quite a bit like my interview replies.
The bastard. My fault, though, for giving away the milk and not having them require that the cow at least be rented.
Is IBM doing the same with these kids? Dunno. Looking at the 2004 Official Rules, however, section 8 of the agreement reads:
By submitting entries, entrant grants the sponsors and their agents of this contest the right to publish, use, adapt, sell, edit and/or modify such entry in any way, in commerce, and in any and all media worldwide, including but not limited to the Internet, without limitation and without compensation to the entrants. Entrant also grants sponsors worldwide irrevocable, nonexclusive and royalty free right and license to use, have used, copy, reproduce, transfer, modify and/or display any information contained in their entry in
whole or part and in any form without compensation.
Things that make you go "tsk tsk." If I read this correctly, it means that they would own your idea as submitted, and can not only use it, but also sell it and / or patent it as their own.
It gets even more fun, in section 9:
At the sponsor's discretion, entrants may be required to submit source code to substantiate
results reported in the entry.
Bastards.
---
wwjd? jwrtfm!
Surely he meant what he wrote. If he didn't, than it wouldn't have been so funny.
Be relentless!
The costs incurred to run the contest are much much greater than any benefit real or imagined that IBM might get out of students' solutions.
I am a bit confused. You seem to think that it is impossible to be both a student and carry a job. I used to work for a company that regularly hired undergraduate students part time. They were cheap labor and we were willing to work around their hours. We certainly gave them work that is better than helpdesk tasks.
A friend of mine, Murat Karaorman, now head of the CS department of the College of Creative Studies at UCSB, started the program as a graduate student. He was a student (PhD), an instructor (Lecturer), and he worked full time at Panasonic. Add to that the fact that he had two teenage daughters.
I currently know quite a few people who are simultaneously students and professionals. In the end, they typically have more doors opened for them than either the Uni-only or the crap-job-ladder-only individuals.
Network Security: It always comes down to a big guy with a gun.
Yes that's true. If I wasn't such a humourless pedant, I might have noticed. :|
Just curious, but wouldn't this have been a better story topic if it were BEFORE the deadline of the contest? Maybe even with enough time to actually complete and hand in an answer so you could qualify for it. I know, it's a silly request. I guess you aspiring scholars can get ready for next year. Doh!
--Somewhere there is a village missing an idiot.
It's all in good fun :)
Be relentless!
You should have logged in and collected some mod points, that really hits the nail on the head
Nearly all of my 20 or so years of full-time work has been spent in IT (I went into teaching for a while, but found that the negatives outweighed the positives for me and went back to commputers), and the skills for that are all things I picked up on my own and/or learned on the job. In college, I didn't study computers at all, I went instead for something that really fascinated me: linguistics. I still love linguistics, although I never seem to have time to even read anything about it anymore, but your point is spot-on: college makes you more well-rounded than you would otherwise be.
If you love software or hardware, taking mandatory writing classes may seem like total drudgery, but they are worth a lot. I probably wouldn't be a manager today if I couldn't communicate well in writing.
History might seem boring too, but you can learn some really interesting things there. One of the most fascinating classes I took in college was modern Chinese history (covered late 1800s through the Cultural Revolution or so).
To me, the well-roundedness aspect was the single greatest thing about going to college. It was wonderful. If I were rich enough to not have to work, I'd go back to school for the rest of my life and just study interesting things.