Hi Richard, Richard Stallman wrote:
This is very timely. I've been asked to head up a pilot project here at the University of Toronto with a goal of engaging students in open source development.I agree 100%. This is something I've wanted to do since 2001 but the right grant hasn't come my way yet. I think practical experience in open source development/collaboration is of huge value to students. Dave Humphrey does this quite successfully with Mozilla projects at Seneca College.If you launch a project of "open source development", you can teach students how to participate in useful projects of collaborative development. That is a useful thing to do, in a practical sense.
I think about this issue pretty much every time I write "open source" -- and it is your fault :) My preference is to go with the free/libre semantics and goals. The project was officially launched months ago and I'm coming in late but I'll see what I can do... I've been told I can make a lot of changes.If you call the same project "free/libre software development", you can teach students how to participate in collaborative development projects, and at the same time teach them to value and defend freedom for software users. That would serve a practical purpose and at the same time strengthen our community's civil virtues. So how about it?
cheers, David