DPS909 & OSD600 Fall 2017

Resources for DPS909 & OSD600

Week 1

• Course introduction
  • DPS909
  • OSD600

• Some questions:
  • What brought you to this course?
  • When you hear "open source," what comes to mind?
  • On a scale from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very)...
    • How comfortable are you working with technology you've never seen before?
    • How likely are you to stick with a problem when it gets hard to solve?
    • How curious are you about how things work?
    • How likely are you to ask for help when you get stuck?
    • How likely are you to pause your own work in order to help someone else who is stuck?
    • How comfortable are you as a writer?
    • How self-motivated are you?
    • How self-directed are you?

• How to have Success in this course:
  • Willingness to be lost and not panic
  • Willingness to put yourself out there, jump in
  • Curiosity
  • Being driven, persistence
  • Willingness to ask for help
  • Willingness to give others help
  • Independent learning
  • Doing more than the bare minimum

• Mozilla
  • Browsers (Firefox, Servo)
  • Languages (JavaScript, C++, Node, Python, Rust, CSS, HTML, ...)
  • Tools (Dev Tools, DXR, build systems, automation)
  • QA, Automated Tests
  • Extensions
  • Localization
  • Documentation
  • Accessibility
  • Teaching and Learning (Thimble)
  • Web technology

• Discussion
  • Move Over Bay Street: Toronto's Burgeoning Tech Scene Is Taking Over
  • Five things undergrads can do now to prepare to enter the job market
  • Open source professionals are more in demand than ever
  • How to get an open source job
  • Frontend Engineer role at Stripe

• Lab 1

Week 2

• Let's talk about Copyright and Open Source Licenses
  • • IANAL: "I Am Not A Lawyer"
    • We're going to explore licensing from the POV of a developer participating in open projects

• Copyright
  • Who created it, "owns" it.
  • Set of exclusive rights granted to the work's creator
  • "The right to copy," to produce or reproduce a work or substantial portion thereof
  • Copyright is automatic when a work is created, you don't have to register it.
  • Copyright in Canada
  • Copyright Guide
  • Copyright lasts the life of the author + 50 years
  • In a software project, there can be many copyright holders (e.g., many contributors), or all contributors may assign their copyright to the project (e.g., CLA, which we'll cover later)

• License
  • Rights, privileges, responsibilities, etc. applicable to someone other than the work's creator
  • "Terms and Conditions"
  • These must be granted by a copyright holder

• Public Domain
  • SQLite, which is now used by literally everybody, see http://www.sqlite.org/famous.html
  • Unlicense

• No License
  • What can you do with code you find that has no license?
  • what can I, can't I do?

• Consider some proprietary/closed End User License Agreements (EULA)
  • Richard Dreyfuss reads the iTunes EULA
    • Part 1: Please Read (.mp3)
    • Part 2: Responsibility (.mp3)
    • Part 3: Damages (.mp3)
    • Part 4: Effective Until (.mp3)
  • Spotify EULA

• Open Source Licenses
  • The Open Source Definition
  • Approved licenses by the Open Source Initiative: https://opensource.org/licenses
  • Choose a License: https://choosealicense.com/

• Learning Licenses: BSD
  • Family of Licenses, including 2-Clause BSD, 3-Clause BSD (aka New BDS), 4-Clause BSD
  • "Why you should use a BSD style license for your Open Source Project"
  • BSD Licenses code is usually compatible with other open/closed code, when you want to mix them.
  • Example software projects licensed under the BSD License:
    • Many Google Projects, including V8, Chromium, Go
    • D3.js
    • Django
    • nginx
    • Vi
  • Summary:
    • You need to retain the license and copyright notice
    • You can use it commercially or non-commercially (privately)
    • You can distribute it freely
    • You an modify it freely

• Lab 2 - will be done online, and will involve compiling Firefox from source. Details will be posted later this week.