User:RHung/FSOSS 2011

Free Software and Open Source Symposium 2011

Introduction

The Free Software and Open Source Symposium (FSOSS) is an annual event where speakers discuss open source and free software projects and subjects that influence the open source world. The conference spanned 3 days from Thursday to Saturday. Thursday was when the workshops occurred; I attended the Processing.js workshop hosted by Jon Buckley and Dave Humphrey and then the Android Development workshop by Simon Chang. Friday and Saturday were when the presentations occurred. The presentations I went to were:

• "How to start an Internet Famous Business with Open Source Software" by Mike Hoye
• "Building a Commercial Game Using Processing.js for Cross-Platform Delivery" by Dawn Mercer, Jeremy Friedberg, Daniel Hodgin, and David Perit
• "Free and Open Strategy as Practice: Participant Perspectives" by Mekki MacAulay
• "A Slice of Raspberry Pi" by Eben Upton
• "Introduction to the Google Android Platform" by Simon Chang
• "When you cannot be there... Remote access and collaboration" by Raul Suarez
• "How Web Browsers Work" by Ehsan Akhgari

While I really enjoyed the talks, the two perspectives that will be discussed will the presentations by Mekki MacAulay and Eben Upton.

Free and Open Source Strategy as Practice: Participant Perspectives - Mekki MacAulay

One of the presentations I attended on Friday was a presentation held by Mekki MacAulay. Mekki is a PhD candidate studying at the Schulich School of Business. The reason why I chose this talk to cover was due to the nature of the presentation. Many of the presentations during FSOSS were about a particular project, and those presentations discussed specifically about that project and the things that affected the project. In terms of scope, they were very localized. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but because of the larger impact Mekki's research can have, as well as my background in studying the humanities, I felt really drawn by the presentation.

The presentation revolved around the study of various open source practices that may either help or hinder a group's growth. The study was still a work in progress, however, the amount of research and the correlations that resulted from the in-depth interviews he conducted were fascinating to me. The purpose of the study was to analyze the practices of open source communities and to see how the different types of practices affect the functioning of the community. Mekki mapped the various routines that occurred in multiple open source communities (given to him via interviews with members of various involvement) to four categories. Practices were considered an enabling practice if the action was considered a positive interaction and motivating for the person and a disabling practice if it had the opposite effect (these two categories were from the research by Mantere). As well, if the practice was codified it was considered to be a recursive practice; whereas the opposite would be classified as an adaptive practice. After categorizing the practices, Mekki found that things weren't as simple as "recursive practices are disabling" and "adaptive practices are enabling." The results showed that recursive practices had instances that were considered enabling, and adaptive practices that were considered disabling. Further analysis showed that the stage of the open source community (well established or fairly new) had an effect on whether or not a recursive practice was seen as enabling or disabling. The same applied for adaptive. I found this fascinating, because the projects that were offered to us had communities that ranged from recent (paladin/gladius) to fairly mature (processing.js).

Based on the presentation by Mekki, I was left with the impression that he was deeply involved with open source. He portrayed open source as opportunity, one where everyone can take part in and benefit from. From his study, it was clear that he would like the information to help aid the sustained growth and involvement of new contributors to the open source community. I think it's a great goal to aim for, being able to help ensure that both new and old open source communities stay strong is very important for both end users and for driving innovation in the software industry.

A Slice of Raspberry Pi - Eben Upton

I attended this presentation partially because of a recommendation of a friend and partially because compared to many of the other talks, the focus for the presentation wasn't on open source. It focused more on what the product was and what the purpose of Raspberry Pi was. While Eben did talk about what contributions the open source community has given his project, for which he was thankful for, it was not the major focus. This was what made the talk so different and so memorable for me. Well, that and the presenter had a British accent, which was also very different from the majority of speakers I listened to during the event.

The speaker, Eben Upton, is an ASIC architect (he designs chips) working for Broadcom. He is also the founder and a trustee for the Raspberry Pi Foundation where he is responsible for the software and hardware architecture of Raspberry Pi. Raspberry Pi is an ultra-low-cost computer aimed at helping children get into computer programming. There are already boards similar to Raspberry Pi both in terms of specifications and function in existence already, such as the BeagleBoard, PandaBoard, and the OLPC. However the main difference is the attempted price point Raspberry Pi is aiming to ship at. Upon retail Raspberry Pi units will sell for $25 to $35 depending on the configuration of the board. Raspberry Pi was spurred on by the experience Eben had when he was on the board of admissions to Cambridge's computer science department. He explained that when he applied to the program, it was a given that the applicants new several languages and had the ability to program some assembly. Now, he laments how far the bar has fallen. He talks about how now "having built a webpage" was considered good enough for consideration. This is a trend I can definitely identify with. The aim for the Raspberry was to provide younger generations the opportunity to learn how to code and program well before it was time to apply for post-secondary education.

The link between Raspberry Pi and open source was with regards to the software packages that will be available for it. Due to the limited size of the people involved with Raspberry Pi (I believe it was 6) and their intention of shipping it within next year, there really isn't enough time or man power to create a lot of content for Raspberry Pi. However, because of the willingness of numerous open source communities like CDOT, Raspberry Pi will be shipping with several pieces of software, with more packages to come. The hope is that the open source community, as well as the individuals who purchase a Raspberry Pi would contribute to the software library that would be available for it. Eben expressed his surprise and optimism at what the open source community has been able to do with the limited time they have had with the Raspberry Pi.

His point of view...