Keynote for Open Source Systems conference in Tunisia

1. Google Summer of Code, Open Source, and Education
Carol Smith, Open Source Programs Manager

2. ● Me
● Why do people participate in open
source software development?
● University Education Now
● Google Summer of Code
● What you can do to help
Agenda

3. ●
Who Am I?
●

4. Who am I?
●
Undergraduate university degree in
journalism
●

5. Who am I?
●
Program Manager with Google
●

6. Who am I?
●
Open Source Programs Office
●

7. Who am I?
●
Outreach and Student Programs
●

8. ●
I'm also really interested in open source
software and why people do it.
●

9. Open Source Software Development

10. Open Source Software Development
Journalist Daniel Pink,"Drive: The
Surprising Truth About What Motivates
Us" discusses the science behind this. [1]

11. Open Source Software Development
Pink has analyzed research on different
regions of the world and on different
kinds of work people can do.

12. Open Source Software Development
What motivations will produce the best
results for different types of work?

13. Open Source Software Development
Offer a tiered payment structure for
different kinds of work to MIT students
and examine the results.

14. Open Source Software Development
Spatial puzzles, throwing a ball through
a hoop, memorizing strings of digits,
solving word puzzles, etc.

15. Open Source Software Development
Those who do the best at the task get a
large cash prize, those who do ok get a
medium reward, and those who do
poorly only get a small monetary
reward.

16. Open Source Software Development
For tasks that are manual or
algorithmic, this incentive structure
works fine.

17. Open Source Software Development
BUT

18. Open Source Software Development
For tasks that are complicated (when it
requires conceptual thinking) the
motivator of "do better at something to
get more money" doesn't work.

19. Open Source Software Development
Conceptual thinking...doesn't that
sound a lot like coding?

20. Open Source Software Development
So what is it that motivates people to
produce better results for conceptual,
complicated work?

21. Open Source Software Development
Autonomy
Mastery
Purpose

22. Open Source Software Development
Autonomy is our desire to work
independently on a task and to feel
ownership of it.

23. Open Source Software Development
Mastery is our urge to get better at
things.

24. Open Source Software Development
Purpose is a sense of making a
contribution to a cause.

25. Open Source Software Development
If you pay people enough that they're
not worried about paying their bills and
feeding themselves, they work to do
the things that enrich them and they
enjoy.

26. Open Source Software Development
Open source software development
lines up really well with these
motivations.

27. Open Source Software Development
Open source software lets people work
independently.

28. Open Source Software Development
Open source software gives people the
ability to get better at coding.

29. Open Source Software Development
Open source software gives people a
sense of place and purpose.

30. Open Source Software Development
And so...

31. Open Source Software Development
People are even willing to work for free
on open source software because it
enriches their lives!

32. I'm also really interested in university
education.

33. Universities Now

34. I believe a universities are where
students get lessons in finding things
that enrich them for the rest of their
lives.
Universities Now

35. Universities are where we give students
the ability to work independently and
feel ownership of their work.
Universities Now

36. Universities are where we give students
a sense of accomplishment and mastery
of their work.
Universities Now

37. Universities are where we give students
lessons about how to be contributing
members of society.
Universities Now

38. Doesn't that sound a lot like what
motivates people to participate in open
source software?
Universities Now

39. Doesn't that sound a lot like what
motivates people to produce better
results for the work they do?
Universities Now

40. Doesn't that sound a lot like what
makes people more enriched human
beings?
Universities Now

41. Don't you think we should be exposing
computer science students to open
source software in their universities?
Universities Now

42. Open Source Software Development
Indeed, shouldn't all university students
be participating in open source
software?

43. ...But by and large we aren't teaching
them about using or developing open
source software in their university
education.
Universities Now

44. Universities Now
A quick poll

45. Only two universities in Tunisia are
exposing their students to open source
software as part of their education. [2]
Universities Now

46. Only 15 universities listed on
teachingopensource.org as having
educational programs in open source. [3]
Universities Now

47. My point is...
Universities Now

48. Some students are getting introduced
to open source software in their
university.
Universities Now

49. BUT
Universities Now

50. We could be doing a lot better.
Universities Now

51. Enter Google Summer of Code...

52. Google Summer of Code is an online,
international program designed to
encourage university student
participation in open source software
development.
Enter Google Summer of Code...

53. Open Source Software Development
Roughly half of the students who
participated in Google Summer of Code
this year (2012) listed something other
than "computer science" as their major.

54. Open Source Software Development
Roughly a third of the students who
participated in Google Summer of Code
this year (2012) were pursuing either a
masters or PhD degree.

55. What are the goals of the program?

56. What are the goals of the program?
Inspire students to begin participating
in open source development.

57. What are the goals of the program?
Provide students the opportunity to do
work related to their academic pursuits
during the summer.

58. What are the goals of the program?
Give students more exposure to real-
world software development scenarios
(e.g. distributed development,
software licensing questions, revision
control, mailing list etiquette, etc.)

59. What are the goals of the program?
Get more open source code created
and released for the benefit of all.

60. What are the goals of the program?
Help open source projects identify and
bring in new developers and
committers.

61. How is the program structured?

62. How is the program structured?
Free and open source software projects
apply to participate as mentoring
organizations.

63. How is the program structured?
Accepted mentoring organizations
publish an "ideas page" of projects
they'd like to have student developers
work on.

64. How is the program structured?
Students submit proposals to the
mentoring organizations for those
projects they'd like to work on.

65. How is the program structured?
Mentoring organizations choose which
students they'd like to accept.

66. How is the program structured?
Accepted students spend the program
term being mentored by their
organizations, working with the
community, and coding on their
project.

67. How is the program structured?
The students are given two evaluations
during the term and paid a stipend for
passing each evaluation.

68. How is the program structured?
Students submit their completed code
publicly at the end of the program for
the use and benefit of all.

69. A proposal

70. A proposal
Start a Summer of Code-like of your
own in your university or organization!

71. A proposal
Encourage your university to teach
open source as part of the computer
science curriculum if it's not already.

72. A proposal
Encourage your university to get all of
its students involved in open source
software development even if they are
not in the computer science
department.

73. A proposal
Talk to other universities or
organizations about doing the same.

74. A proposal
teachingopensource.org

75. A call to action
Help us get more students involved in
open source software.

76. A call to action
It will improve the quality of computer
science education.

77. A call to action
It will improve the quality of university
education overall.

78. A call to action
It will improve the quality of software
in the world.

79. A call to action
It will make our students better job
candidates for the workforce.

80. A call to action
It will make our students happier
people.

81. References
[1] "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What
Motivates Us", 2009, Daniel Pink

82. References
[2] Imed Hammouda, Tampere University of
Technology, Finland

83. References
[3] http://teachingopensource.org/index.
php/Educational_programs_that_teach_Ope
n_Source

84. References
[4]Using Open Source Software in Computer
Science Courses", 2006, Rajendra K. Raj and
Fereydoun Kazemian, Frontiers in Education
Conference, 36th Annual

85. Thank you.

86. Questions?
carols@google.com