Yarr! Hoist Yer Anchors to Get 'Em While They'e Even Younger
Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day and Software Freedom Day!
I'm back in Boston once again, listening to Walter Bender from Sugar Labs talk about the platform and more specifically Turtle Art. For those not familiar, Turtle Art is an activity for the Sugar platform with a Logo-inspired graphical "turtle" that draws colorful art based on Scratch-like snap-together visual programming elements. Way to get them while they're even even younger! Not that my great and abiding love of turtles makes me biased in this matter.
A member of the audience just asked about involving High School students and Walter pointed out that High School students are already Sugar developers and that their Sugar on a Stick initiative is spearheaded by a High School student. Walter and I had touched on this matter earlier this morning during coffee, as a few members of the Sugar team had approached me about participating in the Google Highly Open Participation Contest this year. (Yes, yes, we're getting a new name. Suggestions welcome!) I think many people don't realize how many pre-university students are already involved in Free and Open Source software. In fact, in talking to Titus during the first GHOP, many people have to be convinced that High School students are actually capable contributors to FOSS. Be skeptical no more folks - Walter's success stories about young people and Sugar are proof enough, as are the 1,000 tasks completed by GHOP students during the first contest. Not to mention the whole GNU Generation effort, spearheaded by former GHOP student now Free Software Foundation Intern Max Shinn.
So no doubt you're now thinking, how long until I can visit a tropical island, bond with Giant Tortoises or the odd Sea Turtle and have a pina colada, celebrating Talk like a Pirate Day in style. Swing 'round yer keel and think ye on treasures more near to hand; tasty grog, crystal waters and testudine adventures await ye if you help more pre-university students involved in Free and Open Source Software.
You may have heard that we're planning to running GHOP once again this year, but we need help to make this happen. Melange, the code base that powers Google's Open Source Programs student site, is nearly there for us to open up the contest in early December, but we're not quite there yet. Specifically, we need folks to test the all the great work done by one of our Melange Summer of Code students, kick the tires, file bugs, write patches to fix those bugs, and to document the system for all users. Knowledgeable folks are standing by in #melange on Freenode to help you get started on our To Do list. You can also post to the thread with IRC logs and notes from our latest status meeting calling for volunteers.
I can promise my eternal gratitude for your help. I can also promise t-shirts. I will buy you beer when I see you at a conference.
I'm back in Boston once again, listening to Walter Bender from Sugar Labs talk about the platform and more specifically Turtle Art. For those not familiar, Turtle Art is an activity for the Sugar platform with a Logo-inspired graphical "turtle" that draws colorful art based on Scratch-like snap-together visual programming elements. Way to get them while they're even even younger! Not that my great and abiding love of turtles makes me biased in this matter.
Hrm. Giant Tortoise. Darwin. FOSS. Coincidence? I think not!
A member of the audience just asked about involving High School students and Walter pointed out that High School students are already Sugar developers and that their Sugar on a Stick initiative is spearheaded by a High School student. Walter and I had touched on this matter earlier this morning during coffee, as a few members of the Sugar team had approached me about participating in the Google Highly Open Participation Contest this year. (Yes, yes, we're getting a new name. Suggestions welcome!) I think many people don't realize how many pre-university students are already involved in Free and Open Source software. In fact, in talking to Titus during the first GHOP, many people have to be convinced that High School students are actually capable contributors to FOSS. Be skeptical no more folks - Walter's success stories about young people and Sugar are proof enough, as are the 1,000 tasks completed by GHOP students during the first contest. Not to mention the whole GNU Generation effort, spearheaded by former GHOP student now Free Software Foundation Intern Max Shinn.
So no doubt you're now thinking, how long until I can visit a tropical island, bond with Giant Tortoises or the odd Sea Turtle and have a pina colada, celebrating Talk like a Pirate Day in style. Swing 'round yer keel and think ye on treasures more near to hand; tasty grog, crystal waters and testudine adventures await ye if you help more pre-university students involved in Free and Open Source Software.
You may have heard that we're planning to running GHOP once again this year, but we need help to make this happen. Melange, the code base that powers Google's Open Source Programs student site, is nearly there for us to open up the contest in early December, but we're not quite there yet. Specifically, we need folks to test the all the great work done by one of our Melange Summer of Code students, kick the tires, file bugs, write patches to fix those bugs, and to document the system for all users. Knowledgeable folks are standing by in #melange on Freenode to help you get started on our To Do list. You can also post to the thread with IRC logs and notes from our latest status meeting calling for volunteers.
I can promise my eternal gratitude for your help. I can also promise t-shirts. I will buy you beer when I see you at a conference.
Labels: boston, ghop, sfd, sugar labs
posted by Leslie Hawthorn at 8:41 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home