Textbook(s)

	Producing Open Source Software, 2nd edition, Karl Fogel,
	ProGit, 2nd edition Scott Chacon and Ben Straub,
	The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Eric Steven Raymond, printed version available from O'Railly
	The Architecture of Open Source Applications, Amy Brown and Greg Wilson (editors),
	Practical Open Source Software Exploration, Greg DeKoenigsberg, Chris Tyler, Karsten Wade, Max Spevack, Mel Chua, and Jeff Sheltren, (it hasn't been updated since 2010, but there is some good stuff in there)
	The Linux Command Line, William Shotts,

Other Open Source Resources

• OpenSource.com publishes stories about creating, adopting, and sharing open source solutions. It provides many resources for and about open source and the "open source way", as well as various other useful resources. The open source way is about applying the principles of open source software development beyond software

• OpenHealthNews.com publishes news, information and resources related to open health

• foundation.mozilla.org is the website of the Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit organization that is the sole shareholder in the Mozilla Corporation, the maker of Firefox and other open source tools. Mozilla is involved in many initiatives to keep the Internet free and open.

• linuxfoundation.org is the website of the Linux Foundation, which is "dedicated to building sustainable ecosystems around open source projects to accelerate technology development and industry adoption."

• code.gov is the U.S. Government's Code.gov portal to the open source projects maintained by the federal government. As they put it, it "leverages the power of code sharing and collaboration to help the U.S. Government cut down on duplicative software development and save millions of taxpayer dollars for the American people."

Prerequisites

• official: passing CSCI.UA.0201 with a grade of C or better
• interest in learning about open source culture, history and development model
• willingness to share and collaborate

Topics Covered (exact list of topics subject to change by the beginning of the spring semester)

• Intro to open source: it's not only code
  • open data,
  • open hardware,
  • open education,
  • open government
  • open health
  • …

• History and philosophy of open source

• How to be a Fosser?
  • types of contributions
  • how to get involved
• Review of tools commonly used in open source projects
  • version control
  • communication: IRC as a meeting platform, mailing lists, wikis/blogs
  • bug and issue trackers
  • documentation
  • collaborative development

• Linux and Linux based tools for software development

• Case studies of several open source projects
  • small scale, single program projects (possibly humanitarian free open source projects - HFOSS)
  • Mozilla software suit
  • Eclipse
  • large scale, multi program projects (example OpenMRS, Sakai)
• Licensing
  • types of licenses available and what is allowed
  • how to license your own work
  • avoiding plagiarism

For detailed schedule, see the Daily tab of this page.

Grading (exact grading rule subject to change by the beginning of the spring semester)

Your grade will be based on:

• in-class assessments (40%): several (approximately 6) in-class mini-exams (~30 minutes) based on assigned readings, completed homework assignments, group work, presentations
  given in class, etc (the lowest grade out of the six will be dropped to account for any excused or un-excused absences)
• contributions (40%): these include contributions to existing open source projects both individual and in groups (details to be discussed at the beginning of the semester)
• homework (10%): weekly posts (answering homework prompts, reflecting on readings, contributions and activities), and other forms of homework assignments
• participation (10%): in-class discussions, in-class team work and report-outs

Grades will be determined using the following scale:

    A   95-100
    A-  90-95
    B+  87-90
    B   83-87
    B-  80-83
    C+  76-80
    C   72-76
    D   65-72
    F   less than 65

The grade of Incomplete is reserved for students who, for legitimate and documented reason, miss the final exam. The grade of Incomplete will not be given to student who started falling behind in class. Those students should withdraw from the class or switch to Pass/Fail option.

Academic Integrity Policy

I follow the department's academic integrity rules.

The nature of open source is based on collaborative work. But that work is still performed by individuals. Your name should not be associated with a contribution that is not your own or that you have not put significant amount of work into.

Academic Email Etiquette

• Check the school email address on a regular basis. You can simply forward its content to another email account that you use regularly.

• Use your school's email account to send emails to professors, instructors, TA's, graders, administrators, etc. OR make sure that your email address contains your true name, not "frabjous@gmail.com", "BabyGurl@yahoo.com" or some other cool alias.

• Start your email with proper salutations! Use the correct titles (Professor, Dr., etc.) and spell first and last names correctly. If you are on the first name basis with your instructors, use their names, not "Hey". For example: "Dear Professor Drummer" or "Dear Robert", not "Hey Bob".

• Sign your name under the body of your email, otherwise you expect people to read emails from anonymous.

• Do not write everything in upper-case letters. Do not write everything in lower-case letters.

• Make sure you included everything you wanted before hitting send. Don't send three emails one after another because you forgot something in the first one.

• Proofread the text in your email before sending it. Most of the email clients check for typos, but they cannot tell if your email makes much sense. Read it, before you send it.