Free/Libre Software and Community Networking FORUM

On Fri, 4 Mar 2005, Amrita Mitra wrote:

> I am a student of Software Engineering and i have to present a paper in 
> a technical fest on Linux open source.

   You may want to read the various discussions about whether "Software 
Engineering" is an appropriate discipline.  Many of the techniques that 
are appropriate for engineering do not map well to software.  There was a 
time when the temporary stop-gap of treating software like a "manufactured 
product" made sense, but we are well past the time when these inefficient 
methodologies and associated business models should still be applied.

   There is debate, and there are people who feel they have answers to the 
various critiques various people have on this term or the field itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_software_engineering

Question:
   I consider software to be a social science most similar to law, not a 
natural science like physics or chemistry.  In the past engineering was 
considered an appliction of natural sciences.  Is an application of a 
social science also engineering?

> so this goes out as a request to all open source programmers. please 
> reply to the mail with the following information.

   There are many of these that have been sent out over the years.  I 
suggest you try to look at the various existing studies.  You may get 
minimal reply as some of us fill in about 20 of these per year given the 
popularity of the subject.

> Age :

   Born in 1968 (So this will be accurate whenever someone reads it)

> Profession:

   I am an IT consultant that focuses on "collaborative methods for the 
production of public goods".  These methods have many names from 
"Commons-based peer production" generally, Free/Libre and Open Source when 
talking about software, and has connections with the Creative Commons and 
Open Access movements.

    Defining FLOSS - free/libre and open source software
    http://www.flora.ca/floss.shtml

    Open Systems - a description of what I do for a living and why.
    http://www.flora.ca/open.shtml

> What type of open source project you have taken part in:

   Too many to count.  Most often I adopt some software for a customer, and 
if there is any software that needed to be authored to meet the needs of 
that customer I send patches or other suggestions back to the developers.

   I am not the lead developer on many projects, other than extremely small 
projects where I authored something to meet some specific need and 
published it only on the off chance someone else would find it useful.

> Educational Qualification/ Knowledge of the language or any subject 
> matter that aided in open source programming:

   I started in Computer Science in 1987, but never completed that degree. 
Like most people I know in this field I am self taught, and able to learn 
quickly as things change.   It is more important to know how to quickly 
learn and adapt to a new environment than to be "trained" on some 
environment which is legacy by the time it is taught.

   I believe it is this aspect of my background that has made me suited to 
the FLOSS development environment, and not any specific formal "training" 
which has been of minimal use to me. The most skilled FLOSS people I work 
with have physics or social sciences backgrounds, not computer science or 
engineering.

For additional reading you may want to look at:

Linux Journal: Linux in Government: Linux System Administrators
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/view/709

-- 
  Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
  http://www.digital-copyright.ca/blog/2 (My BLOG)
  Sign the Petition Users' Rights! http://digital-copyright.ca/petition/
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