Free for all: getting started in open source

Ali King

What is F(L)OSS?

Libre as in free speech

● Run the program as you wish, for any purpose

● Study how the program works, and change it ● Redistribute copies● Distribute copies of your modified versions

Diversity in FOSS

“Only 2 per cent of professionals working in FOSS are women, compared to 28 per cent in proprietary software” - UNESCO

Free speech and toxic cultures

Self-selecting groupsIs this a work environment?Not ‘professional’ and proud

FOSS Outreach Program for Women

Created due to few women in Google Summer of Code3 month internshipCode, design, documentation, UX, outreachRemote working

FOSS OPW application process

Communication with mentorsContribution to projectProposal published & submitted for feedbackVery open!

Wikimedia

MediaWiki

MediaWiki software● revision management (version control)● Wikitext markup● PHP + MySQL

Semantic MediaWiki

Semantic data as properties within page wikitextDynamically generate page info from queriesUsed for scientific information & more

Semantic WikiText

PropertyName:[[value]][[PropertyName::value]]

{{#ask: [[Category:City]] [[located in::United Kingdom]] | ?population }}

RDFIO

SMW has limited native data import optionsStarted as GSoC project in 2010Import RDF data from URL, paste text or SPARQL query

RDF

Triples - subject, predicate, objectUse ontologies for common vocabulary between data sourcesSPARQL is quite similar to SQL

RDF example@prefix bio: <http://www.mybioontology.net/onto#> .@prefix rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .@prefix bot: <http://www.biowikifarm/botknow/species#>.@prefix things: <http://www.wiktionary.com/onto#>

bot: bluebell bio:flower-colour things:blue ; bio:habitatbio:woodland ; bio:flowering-monththings:March ;

rdfs:typebio:flower .

Upgrade RDFIO for templates

Template calls with parameter listTranscluded in page to present data in a standard way based on template wikitext

{{TemplateName|parameter1=value1|parameter2=value2}}

Challenges

Information overload!New tools and skills to learnDependencies with no documentationRemote working

Achievements

Release 1.9.6Refactoring & improve usabilityWorking on release 2.0.0

Template handling

Choosing a FOSS project

Interest areaTech/languageCulture

Check IRC channels, mailing listsProject welcome areas - fix a bug!

Check your contract

Intellectual property

Company may own all your code by defaultMay be able to negotiate exemptionBenefit of improving skills

Funding for FOSS work

Google Summer of Code (students)FOSS OPW (women)

Application deadline Oct 22ndEngagement grantsTravel grants

Working with FOSS

FOSS product companies/organisationsOrganisations which contribute to projectsCompanies which OS their own toolsConsultancy

What I’m doing next

ClojureBridgeSeptember 26-7th at CodeBase

Learn Tech Edinburgh2nd & 4th Mondays, starting October

Conferences

SMWCon, ViennaOctober 1st - 4th

AdaCamp, BerlinOctober 11th - 12th

Hire me!

Ali KingData developmentkoshatnik.com@ali_king

PHP Developer @ blipfoto

Further readinghttps://wiki.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen

http://journals.uic.edu/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/4291/3381

http://geekfeminism.org/2013/02/04/open-source-closed-minds-a-reflection-on-joseph-reagles-free-as-in-sexist-free-culture-and-the-gender-gap/

http://modelviewculture.com/pieces/leaving-toxic-open-source-communities