Open Vs Proprietary Mock Debate
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|'''Title''' || Open Vs Proprietary Mock Debate | |'''Title''' || Open Vs Proprietary Mock Debate | ||
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| − | |'''Overview''' || | + | |'''Overview''' || A teacher holds a mock debate in-class around which software paradigm is superior, Open Source or Proprietary. First the students prepare for it through research and argument structuring. |
|- | |- | ||
|'''Prerequisite Knowledge''' || What topics and tools does the student need to know prior to beginning this activity? | |'''Prerequisite Knowledge''' || What topics and tools does the student need to know prior to beginning this activity? | ||
| Line 10: | Line 10: | ||
|'''Learning Objectives''' || What should the student be able to do after completing completed this activity? | |'''Learning Objectives''' || What should the student be able to do after completing completed this activity? | ||
|} | |} | ||
| + | |||
| + | Debate: | ||
| + | Which is superior | ||
| + | Open Source or Proprietary | ||
| + | Each side says "Mine is better, here's why" | ||
| + | The other rebuts | ||
=== Background: === | === Background: === | ||
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==== Open source VS Proprietary ==== | ==== Open source VS Proprietary ==== | ||
Students taking part in the debate should be given ample time to RESEARCH the topic. | Students taking part in the debate should be given ample time to RESEARCH the topic. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ==== For Open Source ==== | ||
| + | As Software Design | ||
| + | The design methodology and practices that many open source projects use is very different both in structure and in culture. | ||
| + | The structure is more agile (able to change), free-flowing, and distributed. | ||
| + | The culture is meritocratic, egalitarian and communal. More power can be given to the individual, and there is a pervasive sharing culture. | ||
| + | Each of these aspects can be studied and defined and looked into as to their traits and differences and benefits over proprietarty software creation. | ||
| + | |||
| + | As Software Consumption | ||
| + | When a person or company decides to use a new piece of software, they will have different factors at play working for them in open source. | ||
| + | Support can work differently - instead of paying a company, you often support it yourself with help from the community. | ||
| + | This is changing though, as vendors are starting to formally support open source software, so its a doubly good point for open source. Both communities and vendors support OSS. You have a choice, whereas proprietary may not offer this choice, or not as in-depth on the community side. | ||
| + | Customization of the software to fit business and person needs or desires is increased drastically. You have the source code, so you can understand how it works, and add to it. | ||
| + | More often, open source is created in Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) type structures, so that modular design is a goal. This means that pieces can be swapped in and out easier, and that software components can be reused and/or called by another part of a seperate system. | ||
| + | Integration into a customized and very competitively differentiated (it will beat out your competitors, because it is different than them) functionality is enabled because you can tweak the code to talk to other systems in unique ways. For example, you might modify what your customer see's by adding in a new field showing recommended items of interest based on their latest purchases. With a proprietary piece of software owned by another entity, that did not have that functionality, it would be very hard to convince them to add this complex functionality. They have dozens of hundreds of customers that they balance changes on. If its your #1 priority, you can take your own resources, modify the source, send it back upstream (to the open source project) and "tada", you get customers to shift their purchases to you, which helps you beat out your competition. | ||
| + | |||
| + | |||
| + | |||
| + | ==== For Proprietary ==== | ||
Is there background reading material? | Is there background reading material? | ||
Revision as of 07:25, 11 July 2015
| Title | Open Vs Proprietary Mock Debate |
| Overview | A teacher holds a mock debate in-class around which software paradigm is superior, Open Source or Proprietary. First the students prepare for it through research and argument structuring. |
| Prerequisite Knowledge | What topics and tools does the student need to know prior to beginning this activity? |
| Learning Objectives | What should the student be able to do after completing completed this activity? |
Debate: Which is superior Open Source or Proprietary Each side says "Mine is better, here's why" The other rebuts
Background:
How to Conduct a Class Debate
Both students and teachers should familiarize themselves with debate formats and how it transcribes to the classroom.
A selection of resources that explain how you might hold a classroom debate:
(from Best to Worst)
- How to Conduct a Class Debate
- Lincoln-Douglas Debate Format: A Primer for Teachers
- Teaching Critical Thinking Through Debate
- Model UN Preparation
Open source VS Proprietary
Students taking part in the debate should be given ample time to RESEARCH the topic.
For Open Source
As Software Design
The design methodology and practices that many open source projects use is very different both in structure and in culture. The structure is more agile (able to change), free-flowing, and distributed. The culture is meritocratic, egalitarian and communal. More power can be given to the individual, and there is a pervasive sharing culture. Each of these aspects can be studied and defined and looked into as to their traits and differences and benefits over proprietarty software creation.
As Software Consumption
When a person or company decides to use a new piece of software, they will have different factors at play working for them in open source. Support can work differently - instead of paying a company, you often support it yourself with help from the community. This is changing though, as vendors are starting to formally support open source software, so its a doubly good point for open source. Both communities and vendors support OSS. You have a choice, whereas proprietary may not offer this choice, or not as in-depth on the community side. Customization of the software to fit business and person needs or desires is increased drastically. You have the source code, so you can understand how it works, and add to it. More often, open source is created in Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) type structures, so that modular design is a goal. This means that pieces can be swapped in and out easier, and that software components can be reused and/or called by another part of a seperate system. Integration into a customized and very competitively differentiated (it will beat out your competitors, because it is different than them) functionality is enabled because you can tweak the code to talk to other systems in unique ways. For example, you might modify what your customer see's by adding in a new field showing recommended items of interest based on their latest purchases. With a proprietary piece of software owned by another entity, that did not have that functionality, it would be very hard to convince them to add this complex functionality. They have dozens of hundreds of customers that they balance changes on. If its your #1 priority, you can take your own resources, modify the source, send it back upstream (to the open source project) and "tada", you get customers to shift their purchases to you, which helps you beat out your competition.
For Proprietary
Is there background reading material? Are there other activities the student should have done first? What is the rational for this activity? Include helpful hints to faculty here.
Directions:
What should the student do?
What topics might be raised?
How might students structure their arguments
What arguments? How should teachers help students think through the issues?
Deliverables:
What will the student hand in?
Assessment:
How will the activity be graded? How will learning will be measured? Include sample assessment questions/rubrics.
Comments:
What should the instructor know before using this activity?
What are some likely difficulties that an instructor may encounter using this activity?
Additional Information:
| Knowledge Area/Knowledge Unit | What ACM Computing Curricula 2013 knowledge area and units does this activity cover? ACM_Body_of_Knowledge |
| Topic | What specific topics are addressed? The Computing Curriucula 2013 provides a list of topics - https://www.acm.org/education/CS2013-final-report.pdf |
| Level of Difficulty | Is this activity easy, medium or challenging? |
| Estimated Time to Completion | How long should it take for the student to complete the activity? |
| Materials/Environment | What does the student need? Internet access, IRC client, Git Hub account, LINUX machine, etc.? |
| Author | Who wrote this activity? |
| Source | Is there another activity on which this activity is based? If so, please provide a link to the original resource. |
| License | Under which license is this material made available? (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/) |
Suggestions for the Open Source Project:
Suggestions for an open source community member who is working in conjunction with the instructor.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
