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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?"
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.
Netcraft confirms: Humor on slashdot is dying.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
When I was in high school, I also felt I knew a lot about computers. Now I realize I knew shit. I still believe I still know shit, just a lot more shit than I used to.
One of the main reasons for college is to teach you how to learn. High school won't do that, so they make college a requirement because you'll keep building on that.
I'm not saying college is required or you won't do well if you don't go to college. Certainly not, but there are benefits to college besides what your teacher tests you on.
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.
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).
The best way to get young people really intrested in linux is to have games which work hands down better on the linux platform.
"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.