USC Tour/Scavenger Hunt

I want to reflect on today's activities, starting with the USC tour and scavenger hunt and then moving on to the SPARCedge presentation and IBM video.
The scavenger hunt went well, despite the bad weather. I believe that learners benefited from this outdoor activity, because they got a chance to:

• familiarize themselves with the USC campus and its history
• get to know their trainers better
• add some variety to the training

USC Scavenger Hunt

A change is as good as a rest. Tomorrow, we will continue working on our projects so giving the learners some time to recover from all the technical content we covered on Monday was a great idea. I also believe that as learners get to know their trainers and other learners better, they are able to overcome their inhibitions and contribute more during the camp.

The SPARC presentation on open source was very informative and the speaker, Bob Williams,  addressed many  important open source topics. He talked about his company and why they believe in open source. Open source is not so much a type of software, as it is a concept that can be compared to a particular lifestyle that seeks to share ideas and innovation with the public as opposed to sheltering and protecting them to maintain a competitive advantage. As a result, competitors turn into collaborators and ideas grow exponentially. I like the analogy of private companies going public. They grow, but the owners will have to share with the public what used to be their private property. I believe that such a mindset entails a lot of unselfishness. It also makes sense that ideas grow faster and become better as more people add their feedback. The only problem, provided that an open source enthusiast even considers this a problem, is that the final product will no longer be called yours, but ours. Mr. Williams also emphasized the importance of embracing open source throughout the company and not just in a single department. He also challenged us to picture a world in which everything is open source. I asked him whether that would take a lot of money out of software development, but didn't get a concrete answer. 

I think what concerns most college students about open source are two things:

1. Why give up your property?
2. How to make money?

Bob Williams on Open Source

I admire the concept of open source and I consider myself not only a user, but also a contributor of open source software and code. I also hope that open source will continue to grow. However, I don't think that open source is more profitable than proprietary software. I also don't think that it is wrong for software developers to get paid for their software and to protect their ideas and creations with copyrights and patents. Most open source speakers don't want to touch on the topic of compensation for open source software. I think that a little more transparency in that area would clear up a lot of misunderstandings and disprove many myths about open source software developers not getting compensated. Overall, I think day 2 went very well and I'm looking forward to Wednesday and Thursday.