FOSS Field Trip (Activity)

Browsing a Forge

Preparation:

Description	Learners will gain an understanding of the breadth of available FOSS projects. Learners will also gain an understanding of the identifying characteristics of FOSS projects including pattern of contributions, patterns of commits, programming languages used, and more.
Source	Detailed FOSS Field Trip
Prerequisite Knowledge	None.
Estimated Time to Completion	30-60 minutes
Learning Objectives	Ability to: 1) Locate a FOSS project on SourceForge and Ohloh, 2) Describe basic features of the project including start date, programming language, code size, and recent activity, 3) Compare two similar FOSS projects based on same criteria.
Materials/Environment	Access to Internet/Web and web browser.
Additional Information	None
Rights	Licensed CC BY-SA
Turn In	Wiki posting describing your explorations of forges and Ohloh

Background:

Open source pre-dates the Web, but the Web and Internet connectivity have been essential for the blossoming of FOSS in recent years. FOSS projects need to be available on the Web to ever gain much attention. There are a growing number of sites (often called “forges”) that provide a home and visibility to FOSS projects (although many of the biggest projects live on their own sites).

Directions:

Please keep notes on your answers to the following questions. You will use them as part of the Project Selection Activity and Blogging Activity which you will work on next.

Part 1 - SourceForge

Perhaps best known of these FOSS sites is Source Forge. In this activity you will explore projects in SourceForge to gain an understanding of the key characteristics of a FOSS project.

Do the following:

1. Go to: http://sourceforge.net/
2. Use the Search feature in the center of the screen to view applications in an area of interest to you (e.g., gaming, sports, music, computing, etc.).
3. How many projects are there in this category?
4. How many different programming languages are used to write software in this category?
5. List the top four programming languages used to write programs in this category.
6. Identify the meaning of each of the statuses below:
   1. Inactive
   2. Mature
   3. Production/Stable
   4. Beta
   5. Alpha
   6. Pre-Alpha
   7. Planning
7. Compare two projects in this category that have two different statuses. Describe the differences between the statuses.
8. Which projects are the most used? How do you know?
9. Pick a project in your category. Answer the questions below:
   1. What does it do?
   2. What programming language is the project written in?
   3. Who is likely to use the project? How do you know this?
   4. When was the most recent change made to the project?
   5. How active is the project? How can you tell?
   6. How many committers does the project have?
   7. Would you use the project? Why or why not?

Part 2 - Ohloh

In this activity, you will use Ohloh to gather information about a Humanitarian Free and Open Source project named Mifos.

Explore Mifos:

1. Go to: http://www.ohloh.net/
2. In the upper-most search space, enter: Mifos
3. Click on the Mifos logo.
4. What is the main programming language used in Mifos?
5. How many lines of code does Mifos have?
6. Click on "User & Contributor Locations" (lower right side of screen). List some of the locations of the developers.
7. Go back to the main Mifos page. Click on the "Languages" link. How many languages is Mifos written in?
8. What language has the second highest number of lines of code?
9. Of the programming languages used in Mifos, which language the has the highest comment ratio?
10. Click on the “Contributors” link under "SCM Data" menu.
11. How long have the top three contributors been involved in the project?
12. Scroll down to the Community area. What is the average number of contributors in the last 12 months?
13. Use the project summary page to compute the 12-month average of commits. What is the average number of commits over the past 12 months?.

Explore Firefox:

1. Go back to the Ohloh main page: http://www.ohloh.net/
2. In the upper-most search space, enter: Firefox
3. Click on the Firefox logo.
4. What is the main programming language used in Firefox?
5. How many lines of code does Firefox have?
6. Click on "User & Contributor Locations" (lower right side of screen). List some of the locations of the developers.
7. Go back to the main Firefox page. Click on the "Languages" link. What other languages is Firefox written in?
8. What language has the second highest number of lines of code?
9. Of the programming languages used in Firefox, which language is the most highly commented?
10. Click on the “Contributors” link under "SCM Data" menu.
11. How long have the top three contributors been involved in the project?

Comparison of Epiphany, Firefox and K-Meleon

1. Go back to the Ohloh main page: http://www.ohloh.net/
2. Click on the “Compare Projects” link under the "Tools" menu at the top of the page.
3. Enter Epiphany in the first column and select Epiphany browser.
4. Once the information of Epiphany is displayed, enter Firefox in the second column.
5. Repeat using K-Meleon in the third column.
6. Which project has more developers?
7. Which project is older?
8. Which project has the largest number of developers in the past 12 months?
9. Which project has the larger number of lines of code?