Introduction: Do you enjoy writing personal projects? Have you ever worked on an open source project? Do you feel it would be more beneficial to develop your own programming projects yourself, or to contribute to existing open source efforts? How would you compare the prestige gained by coding for open source software organizations versus those for proprietary software?
▲ Picture from: opensource.com
The technical savvy and creativity of young programmers is dynamic.
This can be seen in the hard work I witnessed when I participated in this year's (US) largest hackathon in the country, PennApps [1] . Within 48 hours, my high school and college age peers created everything from a device that blinks an eye to allow people who can't speak or have mobility issues to communicate [2] to a pancake maker with IoT capabilities [ 3] project. Throughout the process, the spirit of open source was tangible, with a shared desire built among diverse groups, free flow of ideas and know-how, fearless experimentation and rapid prototyping, and a keen desire to participate.
So I wonder, why is open source not a hot topic among my fellow tech geeks?
To learn more about what college students think when they hear "open source," I surveyed several college students who are members of the professional computer science community to which I belong. All members of this society must apply during high school or college and are selected based on their computer science achievements and leadership skills—that is, whether they have led a school's robotics team, built a non-profit organization that brought coding into underfunded classrooms For-profit organizations, or some other place worth the effort. Given the achievements of these individuals in computer science, I think their perspectives will help to understand the attractiveness (or lack thereof) of young programmers to open source projects.
The online surveys I write and publish include the following questions:
Do you enjoy writing personal projects? Have you ever worked on an open source project?
Do you feel it would be more beneficial to develop your own programming projects yourself, or to contribute to existing open source efforts?
How would you compare the prestige gained by coding for open source software organizations versus those for proprietary software?
While the vast majority said they would at least occasionally enjoy writing personal projects in their spare time, most had never worked on an open source project. As I explored this trend further, some common biases about open source projects and organizations came to the fore. To convince my buddies that open source projects are worth their time and provide educators and open source organizations with their insights into students, I'll touch on three overarching biases.
Bias 01: Creating a personal project from scratch is better than contributing to an existing open source project
Of the college-aged programmers I surveyed, 24 out of 26 claimed that developing their own personal projects was more beneficial than open source projects.
As a freshman computer science major, I believe this too. I often hear older classmates say that individual projects make me a more attractive intern. No one has mentioned the possibility of contributing to open source projects - so in my opinion it's irrelevant.
I now realize that open source projects provide a powerful preparation for the real world. Contribution to open source projects fosters an awareness of how tools and languages fit together [4] in ways that individual projects do not. Moreover, open source is an exercise of coordination and collaboration, which can develop students' professional skills of communication, teamwork and problem solving [5] .
Bias 02: My Coding Skills Are Not Enough
Some respondents said they were intimidated by open source projects, didn't know where to start contributing, or were concerned about slow progress. Unfortunately, inferiority complexes tend to affect female programmers as well, and it doesn't stop at the open source community. In fact, "impostor syndrome" may even be magnified, as open source advocates generally reject bureaucracy [6] - and as difficult to flow internally as bureaucracy, it helps newcomers understand them position in an organization.
I remember the first time I looked at an open source project on GitHub, I was intimidated by reading the contribution guide. However, these guides are not designed to scare people away, but to provide guidance [7] . To that end, I see contribution guidelines as a way to establish expectations without relying on a hierarchy.
There are several open source projects actively creating a place for new project contributors. TEAMMATES [8] is an educational feedback management tool and is an open source project that solves this problem for beginners. In the comments, programmers of all skill levels elaborate on implementation details, suggesting that open source projects are a place for eager new programmers and seasoned software veterans alike. For those young programmers who are still hesitating, some open source projects [9] have taken it into consideration, adopting the impostor syndrome disclaimer [10] .
Bias 3: Proprietary software companies do better than open source software organizations
Of the 26 respondents to the survey, only 5 believed that open source and proprietary software organizations were equal in prestige. This may be due to the misconception that "open source" means "unprofitable" and thus low quality (see "open source" doesn't just mean free [11] ).
However, open source software and for-profit software are not mutually exclusive. In fact, both small and large businesses typically pay for technical support services for free open source software. As Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst [12] explains: "We have an engineering team that tracks every change to Linux -- bug fixes, security enhancements, etc., to ensure mission-critical tasks for our customers The system is kept up to date and stable".
Also, the nature of open source is to improve rather than hinder quality by enabling more people to inspect the source code. Mobify CEO Igor Faletski [13] writes that Mobify's "team of 25 software developers and dedicated QA personnel cannot satisfy all the software developers in the world who may use [Mobify's open source] platform, and each of them be a potential tester or contributor to the project."
Another problem can be that young programmers don't know the open source software they use every day. I've used many tools - including MySQL, Eclipse, Atom, Audacity, and WordPress - for months or even years without realizing they were open source. College students who often rush to download syllabus-specified software to complete class assignments may not know which software is open source. This makes open source seem even stranger than it is now.
So students, don't knock out the code until you try it. Check out this list of beginner-friendly projects [14] and these six starting points [15] to start your open source journey.
Educators, remind your students of the open source community's history of successful innovation and guide them toward open source projects beyond the classroom. You'll help develop sharper, more prepared, and more confident students.
Author: Susie Choi
Translator: amwps290
Source: Linux China (ID: linux-cn)
Original: https://opensource.com/article/17/12/students-and-open-source-3-common-preconceptions
Related references:
[1]http://pennapps.com/
[2]https://devpost.com/software/blink-9o2iln
[3]https://devpost.com/software/daburrito
[4]https://hackernoon.com/benefits-of-contributing-to-open-source-2c97b6f529e9
[5]https://opensource.com/education/16/8/5-reasons-student-involvement-open-source
[6]https://opensource.com/open-organization/17/7/open-thinking-curb-bureaucracy
[7]https://opensource.com/life/16/3/contributor-guidelines-template-and-tips
[8]https://github.com/TEAMMATES/teammates/issues?q=is%3Aissue+is%3Aopen+label%3Ad.FirstTimers
[9]https://github.com/adriennefriend/imposter-syndrome-disclaimer/blob/master/examples.md
[10]https://github.com/adriennefriend/imposter-syndrome-disclaimer
[11]https://opensource.com/resources/what-open-source
[12]https://hbr.org/2013/01/yes-you-can-make-money-with-op
[13]https://hbr.org/2012/10/open-sourcing-may-be-worth
[14]https://github.com/MunGell/awesome-for-beginners
[15]https://opensource.com/life/16/1/6-beginner-open-source
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