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Education Software

OSDDP: Involving Students With Open Source Docs 116

Posted by timothy from the hey-look-they're-adding-to-the-commonwealth dept.
cel4145 writes "The Professional Writing Program at Purdue University recently began the Open Source Development and Documentation Project (OSDDP) where students and instructors across multiple sections of business and technical writing are producing documentation for and about open source applications (see the press release or a mirror). The community and project are modeled after the open source development model and based on service learning principles. For example, students are already working on end user documentation and case study analysis for Drupal and market research and analysis for OpenOffice. Completed texts will be published using a Creative Commons license."
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OSDDP: Involving Students With Open Source Docs More

OSDDP: Involving Students With Open Source Docs

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  • License (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pan T. Hose ( 707794 ) on Sunday October 24, 2004 @01:23AM (#10612816) Homepage Journal
    Does anyone know why the Creative Commons license was used instead if the GNU Free Documentation License [gnu.org]? Are those licenses compatible? For example, would it be possible to made that work available on Wikibooks [wikibooks.org] and parts of that documentation incorporated into relevant Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] articles? I hope so, becuase it is going to be a magnificent project and Wikipedia is a central respository of free knowledge today.

    • Re:License (Score:5, Interesting)

      by TAGmclaren ( 820485 ) on Sunday October 24, 2004 @01:36AM (#10612843)
      Because Lawrence Lessig is cool Stanford Professor that argued in front of the Supreme Court about copyright extensions, and Richard Stallman is hippy-looking MIT drop-out that argues with geeks about Linux really being GNU/Linux? :)

      Related to topic (and more related to my field of study) is the question of journal articles. Most journals are contributed to by academics, and the academics don't get paid to write in the journals. However, the journals are copyrighted to the teeth, and for an academic/researcher/scientist trying to get access to the journals you have to pay.

      That seems like quite an outdated method to me, but it hangs on because of the prestige associated with the older journals (MISQ [misq.org] is a big one in Information Systems). I hope to soon see some prestigious journals coming along with something like a creative commons license, or even better (though much less likely for financial reasons), a big journal swapping all their content over to creative commons.

      It just seems ludicrous that these publishers, who no longer serve a purpose, get paid as the gatekeepers to knowledge in so many fields when it would otherwise be free. Most of the Editors of the Journals are luminaries that get paid nothing, and the contributors to the field get paid nothing as well. With web access meaning you can hit a huge audience virtually instantly at a low cost, why not free the information?

      • License-Gatekeepers! Set my information free. (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        "It just seems ludicrous that these publishers, who no longer serve a purpose, get paid as the gatekeepers to knowledge in so many fields when it would otherwise be free."

        For all forms of knowledge there are gatekeepers. Even your beloved Internet has a gatekeeper know as an ISP.

        "Most of the Editors of the Journals are luminaries that get paid nothing, and the contributors to the field get paid nothing as well. With web access meaning you can hit a huge audience virtually instantly at a low cost, why not

        • Re:License-Gatekeepers! Set my information free. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by _Sprocket_ ( 42527 ) on Sunday October 24, 2004 @02:29AM (#10612958)


          For all forms of knowledge there are gatekeepers. Even your beloved Internet has a gatekeeper know as an ISP.

          My ISP is being a poor gatekeeper then. I can change service to another ISP. I can go to my local internet cafe. I can go the the library. I can wait until I go to work. In all cases, I can access the same information without my ISP either being aware of or having any say in that access.


          Yes, lets hold up as a good example of what we'll get, The Internet. OK so you've just read something on the web. So how do you know it is correct?

          Something gets printed in a Journal. How do you know it is correct? The same process of peer review and established trust can be done with the web. And, in fact, has been done for quite some time.

      • Re:License (Score:4, Informative)

        by metlin ( 258108 ) * on Sunday October 24, 2004 @03:06AM (#10613041) Journal
        Actually that is not necessarily always true lately.

        For instance, these days submissions in Physics happen by people writing a paper, and uploading it to arXiv [lanl.gov] -- where it gets peer reviewed and you get inputs. And more importantly, you establish in public that you were the first person to come up with FOO.

        Not only that, the process is a lot more open than it used to be. Although some J Random dude at Physical Review can (and will) reject your paper for unknown reasons, it's quite unlikely that would happen if it has received excellent reviews after it's put up at arXiv. The process is a whole lot more transparent.

        And since only the final editions go to the journals, the paper is still available at arXiv. And arXiv has been working on making several other publications available online - however, this has only begun for papers from and after 1992, so that is indeed a problem.

        However, although arXiv does have a CS section, it's not frequented as much as the physics or mathematics sections. Which is a sad thing, IMHO.

        And oh btw, in arXiv - the authors own the copyrights, so no question of the journal asking the arXiv to retract the papers. In fact, sometimes authors post their papers after acceptance for a journal publication.

        Not too sure about conference publications, though.

      • OK, I’ll bite (Score:5, Informative)

        by Pan T. Hose ( 707794 ) on Sunday October 24, 2004 @03:54AM (#10613116) Homepage Journal

        Because Lawrence Lessig is cool Stanford Professor that argued in front of the Supreme Court about copyright extensions, and Richard Stallman is hippy-looking MIT drop-out that argues with geeks about Linux really being GNU/Linux?

        I know this is a trendy thing here to insult Richard Stallman, but please at least stick to facts. First of all, he is not an "MIT drop-out." Back in 1971, as an 18 years old freshman at Harvard University he was hired by MIT as a hacker in the AI Lab [mit.edu]. If working as a teenager in The Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in the early '70s is not "cool" than I seriously don't know what is.

        Second of all, it is slightly more complicated than "Linux really being GNU/Linux." You might want to read the GNU/Linux naming controversy [wikipedia.org] article on Wikipedia for a good start. Do you remember the Seattle Times interview with Linus Torvalds [nwsource.com] which was posted here [slashdot.org] just a week ago? This is the first sentence of the opening paragraph: "Linus Torvalds [pronounced LEE-nus] started a revolution of sorts in the computer industry when he created the Linux operating system and decided to share it with fellow programmers on the Internet."

        The problem is that Torvalds didn't start any revolution in 1991. The revolution had already been happening becuase that very operating system had been being written since Linus was 14 years old. Eight years later he wrote the final piece, the kernel, and finally made GNU usable.

        This was a great achievemnt. But the fact that taking an 8 years old project and renaming it after one's name can often start flame wars should not be surprising to anyone. Do you remember the recent outrage [slashdot.org] with CherryOS and PearPC? There are a lot of strong emotions involved where one puts many years of hard work into a project. But that is even not the most important thing here.

        It is not important whose name is on the project. It is not important who started it, but it is very important why. The GNU project was started because of some ideals. Those very ideals made it possible. And those ideals made it needed in the first place. When people read such intervies and get the impression that Torvalds wrote the entire operating system starting a revolution and don't even know that GNU has ever existed, they read "Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary" Torvald's autobiography and get the impression that it is all about fun. Meanwhile, the real revolution has started because of freedom and nothing else.

        And this revolution was not about starting something new, but rather saving something old.

        I strongly urge you to read Free as in Freedom [oreilly.com] written by Sam Williams to know how, when and why the revolution was started. The entire book is released under the GNU Free Documentation License and is available on-line [oreilly.com].

        Stallman, an MIT hacker in the 1970s, wanted a source code for his printer drivers to fix them. A fellow programmer refused to give it to him because of an NDA. It outraged Stallman who considered it a personal insult and who repeatedly refused to get software which was offered to him for free but with an NDA, alienating himself and making his life as a programmer much harder, because at the end he was pretty much the only person in the AI Lab with no access to all of the proprietary software there.

        There are strong emotions involved. There are ideals, fight for freedom at the cost of personal sacrifices. It is not "just for fun." Richard Stallman was not an "MIT drop-out." He r

        • and I'll bite back (Score:4, Insightful)

          by TAGmclaren ( 820485 ) on Sunday October 24, 2004 @05:00AM (#10613260)
          You assume I know nothing about the whole controversy, when in fact I do. I've met RMS, I've heard him speak about what drives him.

          The quip at the start was meant to be humour. You asked why they're using creative commons - I said because RMS is a hippy-looking MIT drop-out [reference.com] (using the second definition of the word), which is all true.

          Now, without wanting to disturb you up there on your soap box, what matters when picking sides over this for most people isn't reality. It's perception. Laurence Lessig is the foremost authority on electronic IP right now, known widely amongst the community for his ideals. RMS is known mostly only within the IT fraternity, and even then people think of him as some smelly monk whose interesting but for the most part to be avoided.

          So, assume you're a Joe Blow (no law degree or PhD, as you quite proudly boast) and you have to pick a license. Do you:
          a) pick the guy who has stood up in front of the supreme court fighting for the prevention of copyright extensions, and who developed the licence that The Beastie Boys have released work under; or
          b) pick the guy that quit MIT, is in serious need of a haircut/shave and who gets up on his soapbox regularly about it should be GNU/Linux, not just Linux?

          Doesn't matter about whose right or whose wrong. It's just how it's perceived. I admire RMS, I think the world needs people like him, but I think that what he's proposing is flawed. I think that Linus's philosophy is much more realistic than RMS's semi-communist approach, and in trying to create freedom for the users he denies freedom for the developers - the people whose software it is.

          Regardless, the original quip was meant humourously (note the smiley). So just relax a bit, ok? :)
          • I think that Linus's philosophy is much more realistic than RMS's semi-communist approach, and in trying to create freedom for the users he denies freedom for the developers - the people whose software it is.

            And yet I have never heard RMS argue that developers should be prevented from writing free software. His arguments revolve around the idea that users should refuse to use non-free software. So it doesn't deny freedom for anyone because no one is prevented from doing anything. It's more of a boycott t
            • On the other hand, if you want support from some piece of proprietary software, you can only get support from the original vendor.

              In addition free software implies open standards which prevents lock in to a single vendor, thus protecting the functioning of a free market from network effects.

          • Re:and I'll bite back (Score:2, Insightful)

            by cofaboy ( 718205 )
            I thought that RMS referred to GNU/Linux that way because he is still hopeful that HURD will become fully operational, this would give 2 systems GNU/Linux and GNU/HURD.

            Both parts are required to make an operating system, GNU provides all the support, bells and whistles whilst Linux and HURD provide a kernel.

            What is it that people find so damn difficult to understand about that

            • I thought that RMS referred to GNU/Linux that way because he is still hopeful that HURD will become fully operational, this would give 2 systems GNU/Linux and GNU/HURD.

              True. Debian [debian.org] is a good example. There is Debian GNU/Linux [debian.org] but also Debian GNU/Hurd [debian.org] and those are hardly different operating systems. Everything is the same except for the kernel. As soon as both versions are equally mature it will be quite hard to tell the difference even for a typical administrator who doesn't mess with the kernel, b

          • So, assume you're a Joe Blow (no law degree or PhD, as you quite proudly boast) and you have to pick a license. Do you:
            a) pick the guy who has stood up in front of the supreme court fighting for the prevention of copyright extensions, and who developed the licence that The Beastie Boys have released work under; or
            b) pick the guy that quit MIT, is in serious need of a haircut/shave and who gets up on his soapbox regularly about it should be GNU/Linux, not just Linux?

            So what do you actually want m

        • GNU have no-one to blame but themselves if everyone talks about Linux rather than GNU/Linux. If Richard Stallman is their idea of marketing, then good luck (yes, I've heard him speak): they'll be stomping their feet in anger for years to come.

          Take a look at http://www.gnu.org. Wow, what a smashing site! Gotta dig that retro HTML 1.0 look.

          GNU is aimed at geeks and programmers. Regular users will keep on talking about 'Linux' because GNU doesn't directly deal with any of the things that are important to t

        • Ummm. No. Linus wrote the kernel and the kernel despite what yall may think is the core and most important piece of the OS. Just because he used already freely available tools does not mean its any less his development. RMS hasnt ever made an os.

          If I build something new using already available tools no one would ever question me and say: Well you should really name it all after so and so who made that hammer freely available.

          Fuck that.

          Even more clear is the fact that HURD still is useless. If you want t
      • In a way, academics do get paid to write in journals. They get their salary, part of which is payment for doing research.

        But there's another way to look at it. In many fields, academics pay to publish. The "page charges" for my latest paper amounted to 1/4 of the median federal grant in my research area. That's just insane. Since I was a graduate student in the 1980s, I've seen page charges go up and up and up, and I've seen the value added by the journal fall to zero. The reviewing is done for fre

        • In my field, Oceanography, we have not moved to the Arxiv model used in Physics ... yet.

          You could easily start one among your friends and colleagues and then get a grant to continue. (There is still funding for that sort ofthing). Or you could join and existing initiative like the Public Library of Science [publiclibr...cience.org]. Either way, something's got to be done.

          Right now as it stands, scientists work on getting their grants, doing the research, hiring and supervising researchers, writing up the research, submitting

    • Possibly because the ShareAlike [creativecommons.org] licence is more "Free" and in the spirit of the GPL than the FDL is?

    • Re:License (Score:3, Informative)

      by a_n_d_e_r_s ( 136412 )
      There is not ONE Creative Commons license, there are many Creative Common licenses. Some are more like a BSD style license than an GPL.

      That is they are more free.
      • The Attribution-ShareAlike [creativecommons.org] license is the closest in spirit to the GPL [gnu.org]. The Attribution [creativecommons.org] license is the closest to BSD.

        There are two big problems with the GFDL [gnu.org], which caused me to change the licensing on my own books to CC by-sa:

        1. The GFDL requires the work to be distributed in a form that's editable with free software. That's very hard to define. For instance, my books have illustrations in Adobe Illustrator/EPS format. This format is theoretically editable with free software, but in reality it's going t
    • At the risk of being modded down into oblivion I will say that your question touches on one of the very reasons that the now almost defunct jabberdoc.org [jabberdoc.org] saw such great demise. Despite pleas from the Jabber community to release JabberDoc under the Creative Commons [creativecommons.org], the JabberDoc team decided to go with the GNU Free Documentation License [gnu.org] instead. This led to many restrictive policies as well as bureaucratic confusion. You can read more about it on old Jabber mailing lists [jabber.org].

      Obviously, there was a lot to be le
    • Wikipedia is a central respository of free knowledge today.

      true but not always accurate or unbiased just check out the israeli propaganda or any massacre of palestinian or islam related material. or even nuclear weapons of mass destruction in israel.

      go ahead mod me as a troll

      • Well, I guess it depends on what you think "biased" means. I think the entries on the topics you mention represent a reasonable consensus of the Wikipedia community. Apparently they seem biased to you, perhaps because you don't share their viewpoint. Within the Wiki community there are specific rules and definitions [wikipedia.org] to deal with the issue of bias.

        If there is a genuine lack of information that you feel would accurately represent facts (facts I'm talking about here, not opinions) that would be seen as fa

        • Having attempted to edit several controversial articles on Wikipedia over the course of about a year, I have to say that I find Marafa's viewpoint much more in line with my own experience. My 20 years of research into certain areas, and careful verification of various historical facts, mean nothing compared to the "popular opinion" on controversial articles. I would have to say that I have found more revisionist history on Wikipedia than anywhere else, and more would-be authors who wouldn't recognize a fa
          • Although I would agree with you that there is a certain resistance to some information that may contradict the popular belief, putting up the article for peer review with reference to the facts usually settles it.

            Yeah, there is some amount of bickering that happens but in the end I've usually seen the crowd settle on some non-opinionistic view-point or the other.

            Take the Palestine article for instance - it is quite neutral for the most part. Go to the edit history, and you would notice that the names edit
            • The problem is that the information contradicting the popular belief is the correct info, just as it was with Galileo. And just as it was with Galileo's peers, the Wikipedia authors have no desire to change their cherished misconceptions.
          • Having attempted to edit several controversial articles on Wikipedia over the course of about a year, I have to say that I find Marafa's viewpoint much more in line with my own experience.
            Mine too. I even went through their dispute resolution process regarding the article on astrology. It didn't really work, because there were too many True Believers who wanted the article to read like an attack on rationalism and the scientific method.
            • I just read the Wikipedia article on Astrology and I am absolutely stunned. While the article was certainly informative about the beliefs of astrologers and about variations in the art of astrology I can not believe that someone hasn't hasn't performed a simple test of taking a dozen or so "respected" astrologers and 500 people. Have each astrologer draw up a chart regarding some aspect or prediction for each of the 500 and then, without letting the chartee see the chart, make two copies and seal it into
      • While I agree that some sections of Wikipedia are probably quite sensitive and keep getting changed, the peer-review process has worked *excellently* there.

        For instance, such pages are often marked to be watched, and when some inflammatory comment or incorrect information gets posted, the people looking over that section/page take note and set it right. And guess what? If you are gonna act like a jerk and post your opinion all over the place, your IP will just get banned.

        Sure, they can't do this for every
      • And oh, I forgot to add - neutral points of view may not necessarily be agreeable to everyone, but that does not change the truth.

        Wikipedia tries and presents the truth as it is, and that may not be liked by everyone.

        From your tone, it sounds like you want unbiased information as long as it is sympathetic towards what you believe. Facts just are, and sometimes they are unpleasant.

        If you are expecting a sympathetic and opinionated information, you will not find that at Wikipedia - they just seek to provid

    • Does anyone know why the Creative Commons license was used instead if the GNU Free Documentation License?

      There are severe problems with the GNU FDL, primarily the fact that it's incompatible with the GPL. As I understand it, that makes it problematic to put docs into code (e.g. Doxygen comments) or code into docs (e.g. API usage examples).

      The "invariant sections" provision of the FDL is also a worry, and has already been abused by people making their entire contribution an invariant section, which kin

      • There are severe problems with the GNU FDL, primarily the fact that it's incompatible with the GPL. As I understand it, that makes it problematic to put docs into code (e.g. Doxygen comments) or code into docs (e.g. API usage examples).

        If it is your code than you can always dual-license it, or release code examples in the documentation (or documentation in the code) explicitly into the public domain.

        The "invariant sections" provision of the FDL is also a worry, and has already been abused by pe

    • The reasoning behind the CC license is much less restrictive thatn the GNU FDL. Possibly a much better idea is asking the owners to release it under a dual licence. I believe the CC stuff is able to be released under the GNU FDL. Also if they aren't compatible you could just have a wikipedia entry giving a description and then linking to that site for the original content. This is a much better idea because it isn't wikipedia that controls this it is the original authors.
    • "Does anyone know why the Creative Commons license was used instead if the GNU Free Documentation License?"

      Yes. Because the project encompasses more than just documentation writing for software. Technical writing students are the smaller part of the mix; the project is largely composed of business writing students who will not be constructing software documentation, but instead will be working with clients, some commercial. So, for instance, Creative Commons has better branding and more useful marketing ma
      • Can you also give us the permission to redistribute the documentation created by your project under the GFDL? This way it will be easier to combine them with other documents created by the community.
        • I can't give anyone the permission. Someone would have to contact each contributing author with each text. And even considering trying to effect such a change in the project globally would be very difficult.

          However, any member of the OSS community intereted in having documentation--whether software user documentation, market analysis, white papers, promotional materials, etc.--can come to OSDDP, post a story about their project to the main page, make particular requests to the issues module, and become in
    • Does anyone know why the Creative Commons license was used instead if the GNU Free Documentation License?
      Because the GNU FDL isn't really free [rr.com]. Even Debian rejected it [debian.org].

  • Pros and Cons (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fembots ( 753724 ) on Sunday October 24, 2004 @01:25AM (#10612821) Homepage
    I can see a couple of advantages such as independant, objective and professional documentation for Open Source.

    On the other hand, I'm also concerned that these documentations might not be as in-depth as if they were written by the persons involved in these projects.

    I mean, will we see a similar case like "The marketing department never understands what we IT is really doing!"?

    • Re:Pros and Cons (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bstadil ( 7110 )
      not be as in-depth as if they were written by the persons involved in these projects.

      I don't understand this. Why wouldn't the people incolved in the project add the In-Depth later sparing them for the grunt work and using their knowledge much better. It seems like a win -win to me

      • I don't understand this. Why wouldn't the people incolved in the project add the In-Depth later sparing them for the grunt work and using their knowledge much better. It seems like a win -win to me

        Agreed. IMHO, for 99% people out there, they don't need in-depth FAQ for many programs. They just need on how to use the program for their purposes. However, when it comes to programming-related tools (like compilers, compiler-compiler, linker, etc), in-depth docs are a must.

    • Re:Pros and Cons (Score:3, Insightful)

      by _Sprocket_ ( 42527 )


      I mean, will we see a similar case like "The marketing department never understands what we IT is really doing!"?

      It doesn't matter. If the OSDDP projects don't produce usefully material, it'll sit unused. If it does prove to be usefully, it'll become widely adopted. Just like OSS, OSDDP material will live or die on merit - not corporate politics.

    • Re:Pros and Cons (Score:3, Insightful)

      by lordcorusa ( 591938 )

      On the other hand, I'm also concerned that these documentations might not be as in-depth as if they were written by the persons involved in these projects.

      This may be a blessing in disguise. Often times, software developers do a poor job of writing manuals for their own software; they are simply "too close" to the project. Since they know the project too intimately, they assume that intimate knowledge is shared by users. End users should never be forced to learn implementation details of a program in ord

  • Kinda different approach... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Skudd ( 770222 ) on Sunday October 24, 2004 @01:26AM (#10612823) Homepage Journal
    From what I know of the open source world, documentation is one area that people make money on the free product.

    Although, I suppose it does make sense, given the fact that what is published could most likely be printed, bound, and sold, just the same as any other documentation.


    • From what I know of the open source world, documentation is one area that people make money on the free product.

      A couple points.

      First, I some of O'Reilly's tactics quite intersting. For example, they sell a book on Subversion called Version Control with Subversion [oreilly.com]. The very same work is available online [red-bean.com]. The book is licensed [red-bean.com]under Creative Commons. This hasn't been the first work done in this manner by O'Reilly. And that would imply that there is something else to this business than hording doc

      • O'Reilly's tactics make sense when I think about all of the ebooks and I have perused online and then bought a hard copy because it's more convenient to read and much easier to carry around. Perhaps this has worked for them in the past?
      • That's a good couple of points.

        I wasn't trying to imply that it was going to destroy the business model, nor that hording the documentation was the only way to make the money. I am fully aware of professional support, packaging, and non-open source software that is bundled with the open source software.

        There is really a very lucritive market out there, even though the product itself is free or the documentation is freely available.
  • Its only good for big projects though. Stuff like Open Office is a good place to start, but I dont see them diving into apache anytime soon...
    • What do you mean? Is Apache not a big project? ;)
      • Apache is probably a lot more complex than they'll manage to comprehend and write good documentation. Maybe mediocre docs, perhaps better than nothing, but nothing earthshattering.
    • Its ironic that you mention that. Apache is a tool that needs great documentation (as opposed to sniffing through newsgroups), as opposed to OpenOffice, which is, for the most part, self-explanatory.
    • If you post on the OSDDP website about Apache and talk about projects you feel need to be done, you might have a few takers. We have classes focusing on Writing for the Computer Industry and others that are populated by CS students. We can't take on any new projects this semester, but if you post on the front page, our students will be able to consider Apache next semester. bender PU Tech Writing Instructor

  • Simpler is Better, Plus Liquid Oxygen Bonus (Score:3, Informative)

    by pipingguy ( 566974 ) on Sunday October 24, 2004 @01:41AM (#10612852)

    Isn't Perdue where George [purdue.edu] Goble [archive.org] teaches?

    He's an engineering and BBQ legend that had to remove his site about lighting and enhancing flames with liquid oxygen.

    Oh yeah, I almost forgot that open source education thingie is probably a good idea. I'd have to buy a Linux for Dummies book and then look for the "if you are still too dense..." part.

    • Re:Simpler is Better, Plus Liquid Oxygen Bonus (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Isn't Perdue where George Goble teaches?

      Actually, he doesn't teach here. He's a systems administrator [purdue.edu] for the engineering computer network. However, I do believe he has patents on refrigeration compounds and equipment, so the engineering part is pretty accurate.

      We use a hand-built refrigerator unit he built to keep sodas at a cool 32 degrees F in our EE lounge.

    • Actually, it's Purdue (Perdue does chickens).

      But yes, GHG has been on the staff of the Engineering
      Computer Network there for many years. But it'd be
      a pity if all he was known for were the BBQ experiments:
      GHG was part of (a) the first multi-cpu Unix system,
      the dual-cpu Vax, and (b) one of the first Unix networks --
      which featured interactive login, load balancing, and so
      on several years before TCP/IP came to town.

      Not to mention a *ton* of work on all kinds of things
      relating to Unix. GHG may not be as wel

  • Enough Docs (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    OSS does not need more docs. Just design software that would work with default parameters. Look how much need for docs is eliminated in a typical distro. Most people don't need docs on how to build the kernel. They just need to install the OS and it would just work.
  • So now we have a "document flanky open source projects" in undergraduate curriculums?

    I'm impressed. Altought it may seem quite idiotic and useless on the first sight, after all, you take a bunch of uninterested students and give them idiotic and generally useless task (after all, WHO does read the documentation), but on the other hand - imagine, back to the basics. Student driven economy. Software wars between universities. Sabotage projects by seniors on the competitors cvs.

    Ah, the future. It looks so b

  • This is a GoodThing(TM) (Score:5, Informative)

    by DLR ( 18892 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .lahtnesorld.> on Sunday October 24, 2004 @02:46AM (#10612996) Journal
    The biggest weakness of OpenSource in general is the documentation. And while no one can argue that you can get more in depth documentation from the author of the software, most of that documentation is difficult to read at best, and so totally obscure that it would be easier to just read the source and figure out the app at worst. When the programmers write the docs they tend to take too much for granted. They'll tell you about the leaves on the trees and the patterns on the bark, but neglect to tell you what type of tree they're telling you about, so to speak. This is why most companies have a different team writing the docs than wrote the application.

    Having said that, I'm very glad to see someone addressing the need for documentation on OpenSource software. If Joe User can grab a manual (even a virtual one) and read up on how to use (for example) Open Office he's far more likely to try to use it if the latest commercial offering is out of his budget. And if some members of Management happen to try reading some decent documentation on a given package they might be persuaded to run a "test copy" at work as well. This shortcoming (the lack of good docs) has probably been one of the larger stumbling blocks to the widespread adaptation of Open Source software by business, and this is a novel way to get some people to work on this area for free.

  • Involving students with open source code (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Diomidis Spinellis ( 661697 ) on Sunday October 24, 2004 @02:48AM (#10613000) Homepage
    In my course Software Comprehension and Maintenance [dmst.aueb.gr] I ask students to contribute to an open-source project, by adding a new feature or fixing an important bug. The course's grade [dmst.aueb.gr] is entirely determined by their performance on this project.

    The course is an elective, and was offered for the first time last year; not many students decided to take it. Those who did, got hooked; some commented that it was the course where they really understood what it meant to program.

    The following projects were completed last year:

    • Support for PDF actions in PDFBox [pdfbox.org].
    • Improvements to the GUI interface of the ZGRViewer [sourceforge.net]
    • The addition of a new question type in the ETH Lecture Communicator [sourceforge.net]

    This year the course will be taught in English and will be offered to students across Europe through the EU's Erasmus [eu.int] student mobility programme. I hope to be able to report on new exciting results through slashdot next year.

    • That is so fscking cool. Just had to say so.

    • Awesome idea. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Aldric ( 642394 )
      I'd have loved to do stuff like that for my grades when I was a student - I hated doing pointless programming like most assignments force a student to do.
    • Universities (in Europe, at least) are mostly funded by the public purse. Why not give students the option of giving something back?

      Almost every computer science degree involves some kind of group or individual project. Just imagine the amount of free software that could be produced if all of these projects were released as open source.

      Also - forcing the students to handle e-mails saying "your s0ftware is cr@p! where can I get l33t cracks?" is good experience for life :)
  • I heard the business school is also helping to write documentation on how NOT to lose to Wisconsin and Michigan. Go Boilers!
  • I thought this was going to be a discussion about getting students to get out of bed early and do stuff, and making them work on things instead of going to parties.

    Now that would have been useful.

  • why not support LDP? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward


    This project seems to have larger scope than LDP but it seems it could still live inside LDP. Some of the documentation producted by Linux Documentation Project isn't really that Linux specific.

  • Beautiful! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Lee_in_KC ( 816490 )

    I'm not sure if the true implications are really sinking in to some of you:

    Imagine being free to write whatever you want and not having to document! Write whatever you want and some guy that slept in on registration day and missed out on a popular development class will document it for you because he got stuck in the documentation class. Finally a reward for those who actually get up on time in school!

    That's just ... AWESOME!

  • Computers and Typesetting (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Ann Coulter ( 614889 ) on Sunday October 24, 2004 @10:28AM (#10614099)
    Knuth's Computers and Typesetting material should be taught to students who want to learn about documentation. Knuth's writing style is very straightforward and direct. Every student who wants to develop a well documented project should at least scan over one of TeX or METAfont program books to learn how to document code. The two programs also deal with orginization, making the most of a given implementation, and good general natural language composition in general. All students who want to pass on knowledge to others should learn from Knuth's example. Knuth is an excellent teacher. I can make that statement from just reading his books. Anyone who want to write clear and concise papers, programs, books, and anything that is meant to teach others should at least study some of Knuth's works.
  • There is already The Linux Documentation Project - TLDP [tldp.org], offering many high quality Linux HOWTOs, FAQs and guides in different languages.
  • ...I am amazed that the machine stayed up under a Slashdotting.

    So did everyone just go "Documentation? Screw that. No way I'm clicking on that link" or what?

    --AC

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