alex.polvi.net

This was my fourth term with the Computing Resources Committee (CRC). Even though we barely met, I was able to continue to learn about the structure of computing on campus.

At the most recent meeting we met with the software licensing manager for Oregon State, Lena Ferris. Coming from such an open source software point of view this was a very interesting discussion. She explained the entire system from purchase to development. One particular part that I found interesting was when she mentioned approaching ASOSU regarding purchasing a campus wide license for Microsoft office. She said that ASOSU was more interested in using open source alternatives and opted out of purchasing. She went on to almost make fun of the decision. It is possible that I just took what she was saying wrong, but it did seem like she was more on the side of the vendors than for OSU. Open source software helps everyone, especially cash strapped organizations like OSU. They will be receiving an email.

Right now I see the committee lacking purpose. Most of the meetings have been bouncing around from topic to topic, and never really making any decisions about anything. At times I feel as if the committee is yet another group keeping on eye on campus spending, in particular, spending on technology. The purpose, I have gathered, is to make sure that faculty are informed about any technology related change.

Next term I plan on continuing to serve on the CRC and the Technology Resources Committee. It is empowering to be a student member on such committee, and I hope to see more students getting involved.

Today was a hard hitting day for open source, Oregon, and what I know about it. Woke up at 6:30am to head up to the Innotech (yes, like office space) conference. Brandon and I were supposed to be lackeys for Scott while he moderated a panel between IBM, Novell, OSDL, and Microsoft. The panelists ended up bickering a lot. This was the first panel (of this type) I had seen, so I am not sure if bickering is a normal thing. None the less it was good entertainment.

The real fun came when I went and found the OSL booth at the actual conference. The booth was split between College of Engineering, and the Open Source Lab. It was almost like it was Open Source and COE at last. Ironically, our (OSL) half of the 8ft tabled attracted waaaay more traffic then our (COE) other half. I know, I know, its not a competition, however I think we proved a point. One of the key factors to having Open Source in COE happen is to have people clammering at the doors of COE absolutely begging for it. This is happening. A person walked directly up to Chris Bell and said something to the effect of “Thank you so much for providing open source in education. You guys are on the right track.” I smirked.

So yeah, the conference is was fun. I found out about myself that I really enjoy telling people about open source, and generally advocating things I enjoy. At the core of all this I feel that I simply enjoy getting people excited about what I am excited about. Just so happens I am excited about a world revolutionizing movement in my discipline.

Once I got back from the conference I spent a few hours doing communications homework. Killed sometime doing that, then started reading the news online. I quickly searched “Open Source”, just to see what was up, and the first hit was about LaVonne Reimer in Beaverton. That reminded me, I was supposed to be meeting with her! I went and met up with LaVonne and Cheryl because they stayed at Weatherford tonight! This was _very_ interesting. If are you are unfamiliar with LaVonne, then you are a minority. She is the director of the brand spanking new Open Technology Business Center. They are all fired up about open source (as they should be). We discussed open source, running over children, cheating Harvard students, and some sort of skate board motorcycling. Very very enlightening. I am going to continue to meet up with them in the morning.

Such a conversation really makes me appreciate the value that Weatherford has brought. I was able to sit one on one with big players in my industry, and let my voice be heard. For most students (at least in my hall) the value seems to come from the drinking and screaming that is oh so fun at 1am. I am encouraged to see a program that is strong enough to create collaboration, even in such a hostile environment. The more I think about it, the more I hope to stay at Weatherford.

I suppose it will all work out in the end. Just be passionate about something in the mean time.

Alright, need to plan my week. Going to be very busy.

Monday:
Locate room for lug meeting this Friday
Finish clean up work at OSL after mass host migration
Hopefully hear back from IBM regarding confidentiality agreement
Study: MATH night. Look over first few bits of COMM review

Tuesday:
Study: MATH, poke around on phyiscs problems, look over little more COMM

Wednesday: Physics practice, followed up by more COMM note taking

Thursday: PHYSICS!

Friday: Chill out

Sat: Probably waste doing something worthwhile, study in the evening

Sunday: Study for whatever finals I have the next day.

Well, it wasn’t that big… but sort of a climax.

The group:

• Dean Adams : Dean, College of Engineering
• Dr. Quinn: Active EECS Professor
• Jim Lundy: Involved with the space allocation process
• Scott Kveton: Word up OSL!
• Brandon Philips
• Mike Marineau
• Me

This was our chance to share our proposal regarding new space with in the College. Here we could gain our traction to start working towards open source in education.

Before the meeting even started, Dr. Quinn started talking about a recent curriculum meeting the EECS department had. Pretty much they are hiring as many tenure professors as possible, move towards more research, and have less emphasis on undergraduate studies. Sad. However, they are going to start relabeling classes to be more open source friendly. “Linux Systems Administration”. I guess this is a step, but not really too helpful. It is progress none the less.

We gave our pitch during the meeting and it went pretty well. I am pretty confident they are going to get us an adequately sized space for the LUG.

As for getting actual education around FOSS? Well, we need to get cracking on the platform for learning. This will ideally be our next move. Right now COE is in a flux with what to do with the CS dept. The EE guys have tekbots and everybody loves it. We need to match that with a platform for learning based around open source software.

The right people are listening, we have the support, we have the students, it is just going to take leadership to make it happen.

Today the OSDL, from Portland, came to OSU to talk to students about a “membership” into the OSDL. Sort of like how ACM, NSPE, or EFF is funded.

Here are my notes:

- About the OSDL

* Mission: “… Center of Gravity… ”
* Vendor neutral
* No products
* Supply full time developers to the community
** Linus
** Mortan
* “doing patches to 2.7 right now”
* “All tests posted on the web”
* Production kernel: Morton, Experimental: Linus. (I thought it was the
opposite)

- About the memberships

* OPB style
** Gifts for contribution
* Supports kernel development
* Supports Legal efforts
** SCO Suit
** Easier for users because they do not have to worry about SCO
** Grow legal fund
** Open Source Licenses.
** Works with OSI

* Do not sell members products
* Trying to get involved with the end user.
** Getting involved with the desktop initiative.

“What would make you feel good about giving a donation?”
* Help kernel devs
* Help engineers
* more projects
* more initiatives

Pays Linus to work full time to develop the kernel.

She also said twice “Down with Microsoft.”

My comments on the situation:

Honestly, I am not quite sure what the OSDL is up to about this. This
could easily be looked as a fund raiser, but I do not think it is.
Simply because they would not make much money from us poor college kids
;) They seemed to understand that. So what else is there? I suppose they
could be trying to build an elite community, but that _sort of_ goes
against the whole open source world. Even though there are some elite
OS groups out there — nobody (that I know of) paid to be in them.

If they really want to build a good relationship with FOSS users and
devs in college, they need to offer scholarships and internships. This
year was the first year they provided internships to the popular MECOP
program on campus. Good start. They also need to be proactive about
getting speakers down here to talk about how cool they are. The OSDL has
plenty of interesting resources, in people, that could greatly benefit
students. Now we just need to get them to share, with out having to buy
our way in.

We told them all this.

I think this was a good start for them. They started by coming to our
community and gathering our thoughts. However, the fact that they did it
as a “Focus Group” just screams cooperation. If they want to come
across as a community member they need to interact more with the
community, in a community style. They probably would have gotten more
feedback and attendance if they just would have came to a LUG meeting.
:)

If nothing else, they understand that selling a college student this
“membership” is not going to be easy.

Dr. Quinn, Kveton, Philips, and myself got together to talk a little more about adopting open source into EECS. This was the first meeting that Scott was involved in directly, and he nearly sealed the deal. Scott’s energy got all of us excited, including Dr. Quinn.

This Friday we are all meeting again. This time with Dean Adams, Dean Lundy, Dr. Quinn, Kveton, and Philips. We are going to talk about finding a permanent space for the OSLUG to foster open source innovation. :) We are also discussing curriculum.

Very very exciting!

Here is the line up.

Wednesday: Send off scholarships I have been working on. Attend the career fair for many schmoozing opportunities.

Thursday: Harish Pillay from RedHat Asia arrives at Oregon State. I will be hosting him.

Friday: Breakfast with Harish in the morning. Meeting with Kveton and Dr. Quinn regarding open source in COE mid morning. Class all afternoon, followed up with the Oregon Stater dinner. At the dinner Harish will be put into the Oregon Stater hall of fame. After that it is Johnny’s birthday celebration.

Saturday: Attend Phu’s badmiton tournament at Oregon State. This will be the first time Phu (who took me to Vietnam) has come to OSU.

Fill in the gaps with working away at the OSL!

Go life.

Right now things are slow, too slow. Tonight I got ahead homework and finding myself running and rock climbing. I even hacked together a digitial picture frame out of an old laptop. Have no fear, in like 2 weeks we have finals and things will pick up again.

Well, got my math midterm back today. I got a big fat 50.9%.

On a good note a 50.9% translates into a B with the curve. The average was a 43%. I think this was the first test I have taken that I got it back and took a sigh of relief that it was 50%. I honestly thought I did a lot worse.

There is a conflict in the restroom. One side, “don’t waste the seat covers.” The other, “then give is paper towels!” Should I choose a side? I will admit that on occasion I have taken seat covers in order to dry my hands, but it is by no means an everyday thing.

The really interesting point is how much vigor students are taking on this issue. They are self organizing, writing letters, and actively providing reason for why paper towels are needed. Paper towels! Think if we could get everyone this fired up about a topic. Maybe the essence of the towel is that it is a basic need. Nobody wants wet hands. A lot of people want a lot of different things. Why can people rally around things such as a paper towel dispenser, but it is harder to tell your state you need lower tuition, or a new program based around free software?

I guess we all have our own agenda and it simply takes people fired up about the same thing to make change.

I vote paper towels.