Teaching Open Source (Activity)

Browsing a Forge

Preparation:

Description	Learners will become members of the Teaching Open Source mailing list and create a member wiki page.
Source	Teaching Open Source web site
Prerequisite Knowledge	None.
Estimated Time to Completion	30-45 minutes
Learning Objectives	Ability to: 1) receive TOS list serv mailings, 2) Create a personal wiki page.
Materials/Environment	Access to Internet/Web and web browser and email client.
Additional Information	?
Rights	?

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 is 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:

Part 1 - Teaching Open Source Website

Teaching Open Source (http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/Main_Page) is a "neutral collaboration point for professors, institutions, communities, and companies to come together and make the teaching of Open Source a global success." You will visit this site and sign up for the list serv.

Do the following:

1. Go to: http://teachingopensource.org/index.php/Main_Page
2. Locate the the Get Involved section.
3. Click the Join the mailing listItalic text link
4. Read through the information on the resulting page. Click the mailing listItalic text link.
5. Complete the information in the form and click the Submit Italic textbutton.

1. 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
2. Compare two projects in this category that have two different statuses. Describe the differences between the statuses.
3. Which projects are the most used? How do you know?
4. 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?
5. Look for projects that have a humanitarian purpose. That is, projects for which the primary purpose is to provide some social benefit such as economic development, disaster relief, health care, ecology. Examples include Mifos, Sahana and OpenMRS.
6. Find several additional examples of humanitarian FOSS projects.
7. Pick one humanitarian FOSS and look at the data available about it.
8. How would you decide whether it was worth using?
9. How would you decide whether it was worth contributing to as an IT professional?

Part 2 - Ohloh

Comparison of Epiphany, Firefox and K-Meleon using Ohloh.net In this activity, you’ll explore some of the development characteristics of web browsers, one of which was presented today including the number of developers and the programming languages used in each.

Explore Epiphany:

1. Go to: http://www.ohloh.net/
2. In the upper-most search space, enter: Epiphany
3. Click on the Epiphany logo.
4. What is the main programming language used in Epiphany?
5. How many lines of code does Epiphany have?
6. Click on the World Activity Map (lower right side of screen). List some of the locations of the developers:
7. Go back to the main Epiphany page and click on the “Code Analysis” link under right-hand DEVELOPMENT menu.
8. What other languages is Epiphany written in?
9. What language has the second highest number of lines of code?
10. Of the programming languages used in Epiphany, which language is the most highly commented?
11. Click on the “Contributors” link under right-hand COMMUNITY menu.
12. How long have the top three contributors been involved in the project?
13. Click on the “Managers” link under right-hand COMMUNITY menu.
14. How many managers does the project have?

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 the World Activity Map (lower right side of screen). List some of the locations of the developers:
7. Go back to the main Firefox page and click on the “Code Analysis” link under right-hand DEVELOPMENT menu.
8. What other languages is Firefox written in?
9. What language has the second highest number of lines of code?
10. Of the programming languages used in Firefox, which language is the most highly commented?
11. Click on the “Contributors” link under right-hand COMMUNITY menu.
12. How long have the top three contributors been involved in the project?
13. Click on the “Managers” link under right-hand COMMUNITY menu.
14. How many managers does the project have?

Comparison of Epiphany, Firefox and K-Meleon

1. Go back to the Ohloh main page: http://www.ohloh.net/
2. Click on the “Compare Project Metrics” link on the lower left side 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?