Sourceforge and Free Open Source Software

Topic	Benefits
What is it? It is a global free, open source software development community.	Teachers
Define FOSS: four freedoms, GPL, FDL, CC, shareware, freeware 0 1 2 3	Teachers & Students
Exploring Sourceforge: Find useful software: long tail, bazaar Exercise: find projects related to other presentation topics [4-5 minutes] Example: text to speech (examine espeak file speak_lib.h)	Teachers & Students
Course Design Practices Integrate existing projects (audacity, espeak) Create custom applications Create mini-lessons, learning objects that link to Merlot (GPL or FDL) Example: audio virtual reality electronic literature (symposia symposia.cpp)	Teachers
Digital Humanities Assignment Component Create projects related to coursework Evaluate projects for a course task System-level examination of license and copyright notices for FOS compliance	Students
Development (smaller percentage of students have commit rights) programming bug fixes testing	Students
Service Learning opportunities (majority of students document (Yeats)) manuals (espeakedit) web sites wikis bug reports (user-centered design) feature requests (user-centered design)	Students
Unrestricted Public Record of Achievement: For portfolios, applications, resumes	Teachers & Students
Raymond, Eric S. The Cathedral and the Bazaar. (Rev. ed.). Sebastopol, Calif.: O'Reilly, 2001. Stallman, Richard. Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman. Boston: GNU Press. 2010. Yeats, David. “The Role for Technical Communicators in Open-Source Software Development.” Technical Communication 55.1 (February 2008): 38-44.

If there is one takeaway, it is to read Yeats and realize that in most classes only a small percentage will be programmers. And also that paste from Libre Office is flawed.