I, at the end of day 4, was able to package an application for Fedora. It was nice seeing how RPMs(.debs in Ubuntu) are created. On day 5, we were pointed at some great sites we could check for open source software development and its statistics. Examples are opensource.comtheopensourceway.org, openhatch.org and ohloh.net.
Below are some pictures we took. We also had a great dinner on day 4 at Cape to Cuba, Long Street.
We got thinking on the later part of the 3rd day, a process referred to as “Curriculum Workshopping.” And at the end of the brainstorming, we came up with an image (thanks to Mel and Pierros for their artistic touches) of what ecosystem we want in South Africa. This is a reference model that could be adapted anywhere. It has got every institution and body represented, namely academic, industry and the communities.
I got myself into trouble when I tried to dual-boot on the day 3 of POSSE SA. I tried installing Fedora 13, but the installation resulted in me not able to access again the existing OS (Ubuntu) on my PC. Many thanks to Jan, the Red Hat guy, who helped me fix it. I am however happy that I was able to file two bugs on the Fedora 13 OS. Check them at Bugs 640943, and 640947
By the way, we’ve got some photos on Flickr, and some notes on identi.ca. I look forward to day 4.
It all went well. The instructors showed us how to create and submit a patch. Pierros later demonstrated how to translate a software package using desktop and web-based tools. Examples of desktop tools one could use are Poedit and Virtaal, and examples of web-based tools are Narro (used for Firefox) and Transifex (used for Fedora). We also took a look at the various versioning tools – CVS, SVN, GIT, e.t.c.
If there is anything I am happy about, it’s that everyone is learning one thing or the other. There are always new things to learn about. Day 2 of POSSE SA is over. We could go have fun – hiking Table Mountain! See you all tomorrow.
We just rounded off the day 1 of POSSE SA. Every applicant showed up, and they had a nice time. I enjoyed every bit of it, starting from Jan’s talk on the 3 O’s (Open Content, Open Source and Open Standards) to the end-of-day reflections. It’s nice hearing what every participant anticipated and what they got at the end of the day. In few words, I would say “we are on the right track, and getting more productively equipped.” Not productively lost!!
Although one of the POSSE’s objectives is showing us how to engage our students in open source software development, I think another objective of POSSE is exposing us, the instructors, to tools we could use in our classes to make our work easier (make us lazy ), irrespective of the course(s) we teach. And that’s awesome!!
I see myself using some of the collaborative tools mentioned today in some my classes next session. But my concern is how do I keep record of the students’ works for accreditation and other purposes. These ideas and tools won’t work for all courses, I think. I will sleep on it and discuss with my colleagues. I think that’s one of those things we need to iron out. For now, POSSE Day 1 was great, and I look forward to tomorrow.
In about 36hrs from now, the first POSSE (Professors’ Open Source Summer Experience) in Africa will commence at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. I am excited to be part of it and am looking forward to a lifetime experience. The is an introductory blog post, hence the title “Pre-POSSE SA.” The post is arranged as follows. Section I presents how the desire to run POSSE in Africa all started. Section II discusses the POSSE SA instructors, and Section III wraps up the post.
Section I – The Journey into POSSE SA
The story won’t be complete without mentioning names and organizations. Way back 2007, I was googling for how to hack a browser, when I came across the name David Humphrey, a professor at Seneca College, York Campus, Canada. I saw that he was teaching his students how to hack the Mozilla codebase. I also wanted to hack the codebase to show a proof of concept in my research. So, I mailed him, and we had some correspondence on how I could accomplish the task. In the process, I noticed that his centre, CDOT, was inviting Mozilla developers to come and teach his students how to hack the codebase. In addition, the centre was running a course and a one-week workshop on hacking the codebase every year for awhile. I remember getting in touch with them (David, Chris and Evan) if I could participate in one of the workshops. To keep the long story short, I did successfully hack the codebase, developed an extension and published a number of papers with David. I achieved all without travelling but researching day and night.
The other part of the story is that I eventually met with David, Chris and Evan last October at the Teaching Open Source Summit (TOSS ’09) and the Free Software and Open Source Symposium (FSOSS ’09) in Canada. And that was when I met Mel Chua. Many thanks to Mozilla (and Mark Surman) for their kind support. It was all a warm reception; I did a presentation at FOSS [1, 2] and really enjoyed my participation in TOSS ’09. Before I left South Africa for Canada, I had learnt about POSSE. I discussed it with Greg DeKoenigsberg and Mel that we would love to host it in Africa (most likely, South Africa) the following year (2010). And that’s what we are now doing.
Section II – POSSE SA Instructors
We are looking forward to three instructions, who will be arriving Cape Town in the next 24hrs. They are Mel Chua, Jan Wildeboer and Pierros Papadeas. Interestingly, none of them have meet one another before, as Mel told me. We have all introduced ourselves on the mailing list, and I am looking forward to meeting them. Mel has already given us some tasks (notes to read before the Monday class), and I just read a mail from Jan giving us his cellphone number and asking us to reach him in case he is lost (lol!!). Pierros also blogs at every wi-fi hotspot he reaches. Fellow participants have also started opening the required accounts – web blog and fedora project accounts – for the workshop.
Section III – Conclusions
I am glad that POSSE is starting on Monday. I wish the instructors journey mercies; they are all in different flights to Cape Town at present. Awesome!! We have got participants from most of the institutions in the Western Cape of South Africa, namely UCT, UWC and CPUT, the host. We are also expecting visitors from Open Source Communities, who will be joining us at the dinner, and we do expect some other visitors to stop by during the workshop. We do hope to have a great time, and I will be blogging every bit of the experience. Stay tuned!!
), irrespective of the course(s) we teach. And that’s awesome!!