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This course introduces students to the technological, social, and pragmatic aspects of developing open source software through direct involvement in the Mozilla projectand OpenOffice.org projects. Students will learn to use the tools, techniques, and strategies of open source developers. This is a project-based programming course. The Mozilla project has and OpenOffice.org projects have been chosen as an example examples of an open source project projects because of its their maturity, breadth and depth of technology, and strong community.

* Write software that integrates and interacts with the Mozilla project’s or OpenOffice.org code. For example: add-ons; bug fixes; new features; etc.* Work collaboratively with fellow students and members of the Mozilla communityor OpenOffice.org communities.

This is a project course, and the majority of each student’s mark will come from work done on a real Mozilla development project. The primary goal of this project is to get students involved in the Mozilla /OpenOffice.org development community and codebase. Through this experience students will learn about the processes, tools, and practices involved in developing software as part of a large open source community.

Third, consider the sharp dividing line between student projects in most programming courses. For the most part, students are evaluated on their ability to do a particular project or to solve a particular problem on their own. The outcome is measured against peer outcomes. However, in this course students are not in competition with their peers; rather, they are all working on one large project (i.e., Mozillaor OpenOffice.org) with many sub-projects within it. As a result, there is no clean line to divide one student’s work from another, or even student work from that of the Mozilla open source community. This means that collaboration between students and even other members of the Mozilla open source community is acceptable practice.

* Work with and within the Mozilla open source community

* Each student must pick a project from the list of proposed projects, or have another project idea approved by the instructor.* Students are strongly encouraged to work individually, and only in rare circumstances will partnerships be allowed. * Create a project page based on the [[Sample Project|'Sample Project' template in the wiki]]. If someone has already created a page for a project you want to work on, speak to that person to see if you can join him/her. If she s/he says yes, add your name to the Project Leader(s) section; otherwise pick another project and become a Contributor instead (see below). * Become a Contributor to one or more other projects. This is something that will just happen as you interact on IRC or in class. As people need help, you can choose to get involved with things. You are encouraged to use the [[Contrib Opportunities]] page to list and find things you can do. For example: helping to debug something, doing research into a problem, writing some tricky code. Over time your list of contributions to other peoples’ projects should grow. Keep track of this in your personal page. It is often said that open source projects are "meritocracies", where your stature is measured by your contributions and skill, so generously contributing to other projects and participating in the community may increase your influence and help you achieve your objectives. For maximum personal growth, try to contribute in different ways to various projects -- for example, contribute documentation to one project, code to another, testing to a third.

Given that this course is focused on open source development, and given that the OSD600 students are working work on real pieces of the Mozilla codebaseopen source codebases, all student work will become open source. The particular license used will be determined based on the other parts of Mozilla with which you are interacting. It is critical that you honestly acknowledge the particular project and open source of all intellectual property and that you do not introduce IP with an incompatible license into the project(e.g., Mozilla code licensed as such).

* '''60%''' - Final [[Fall 2008 DPS909 and OSD600 Major Project |Project]] Deliverables (e.g., code, documents), marked in terms of quality, quantity, etc. Your project will be marked at three milestone releases, the number and values being:** 15% - 0.1 Release

* '''20%''' - Project Wiki Page and Blog. You will be marked on your blog project and wiki pagespersonal page' s quality, depth of explanation, frequency of update, etc. '''NOTE:''' You will be expected to include coverage of [http://fsoss.senecac.on.ca FSOSS] in your blog, which means [http://fsoss.senecac.on.ca/2007/register.php registering]. Students receive a discount, and volunteering Seneca students can get in for free.

==Resources & Links==

* [[Winter DPS909 and OSD600 Fall 2008 OSD600 Weekly Schedule]]* [[Students in OSD600 Fall 2008]]

 ==Examples== Here are a list of good student artifacts from the previous course, which should provide examples for future students to follow: * '''Blog''' - [http://csarmenzg.senecacblogspot.com/ Armen], [http://crashopensource.onblogspot.cacom/index.php?outline=OSD600 Official Course OutlineLukas]* '''Personal Wiki''' - [[DPS909User:Armenzg|Armen]], [[User:Backinblakk|DPS909 Lukas]]* '''Project Wiki''' -- Related Mozilla course in [[Automated localization build tool]], [[Extending the BSD programBuildbot]], [[Buildbot and EC2]]