Michael Leibowitz, OpenOffice.org developer, gave an overview of the tools and processes used in developing OO.org. Particularly he concentrated on the steps a developer must take to get a patch into the project. A video of the presentation can be found on Google Video.
Eclipse Foundation members Bjorn Freeman-Benson and Ward Cunningham came to OSU to give a presentation in Professor Budd’s Open Source Development class. The title of the talk was “Software Creativity the Wiki Way.” Ward Cunningham is, of course, the inventor of the wiki-web concept, as well as being coinventor (with Kent Beck) of CRC cards, and part developer of the ideas of extreme programming. After the talk Bjorn blogged some nice comments on the experience, which you can read here .
Update: a video of the presentation can be found here.
Rene Reitsma, Oregon State Business Professor, presented the issues involved in creating an Open Source business and some of the strategies used by IBM, VA Linux and Red Hat. Attention was also given to the issue of total cost of ownership for companies using OSS to run their businesses. A recording of the presentation can be found on Google video and the slides can be found on the CS419 website.
Valerie Henson, Linux Kernel hacker working for Intel, came to Corvallis to talk with the CS 461 class about “how to write open source code and get paid for it, too.” As Val noted, in the dreary post-dot com crash era, the conventional wisdom is that there are more qualified computer professionals than job openings. In reality, the reverse is true in many areas of software development. Open source development is a fast-growing field; many Linux-related programming jobs go unfilled for 6 months or more for lack of qualified applicants.