Free Software and Open Source Symposium 2011
Written by: Hyungryul Chun (ID:066606096)
Date: 11/4/2011
Course: DPS909
Introduction
When I was first told that I would need to go to FSOSS for DPS909 because we need to write a report on the symposium, I felt devastated. I liked open source and I definitely like free software, but I wasn’t sure if I liked the idea of giving up good chunk of my reading week, when most of the week would be already used up finishing up major assignments and studying for the business midterm which was scheduled the first thing after reading week was over. So what is FSOSS? Well, as the name suggests, it is a symposium for free software and open source. People gather to listen to other people talk about free software and open source topics… great! But, what can I, as a student who does has barely experienced real world programing by contributing to the popcorn.js project, gain from going to these seminars? How can I relate myself to those who is living and breathing open source? Would I even be able to understand the kind of things they are talking about?
MY Encounter
I doubted myself with questions like above and was hoping that I can make some sort of observation in order to write this report. On the first day, I went to 2 workshops. The first workshop that I attended was a processing.js workshop was provided by Professor Humphrey and John Buckley. It was weird being in the usual class room that I have with my fellow classmates and my professor, but with bunch of old folks! These older people seemed to be professionals who are out in the real world programing. It felt weird but interesting that I would be taking a workshop with these people who probably have a load of experience developing. Even though I didn’t have a positive view about attending FSOSS, the seminar was very exciting and I had a lot of fun. I loved the basic commands that Mr. Buckley showed the class. We were able to test the code on the processing IDE, and also edit the code so that we can have our own variation to the tutorial code. The first workshop on the first day of FSOSS was already starting to change my mind about FSOSS.