Bio of a FOSS Person (Activity)

Title	Bio of a FOSS Person
Overview	Student will research an individual who has had significant influence on the FOSS movement and prepare a short biography.
Prerequisite Knowledge	A general introduction to the FOSS movement and history would be helpful.
Learning Objectives	Students should be able to explain how their individual contributed to the FOSS movement and why their contributions were significant. In addition, the student should be able to explain what it is about FOSS software that allows individuals to become influencers within their communities.

Background:

The Free and Open Source Software movement is has been shaped by more than a few strong personalities, whose points of view have not always agreed 100%. This exercise explores some of those who some of those people are and what their contributions to open source are.

Directions:

The purpose of this exercise is to become familiar with some of the people who have shaped the Free and Open Source world. Everyone below has made at least one (often more) major contribution(s) to FOSS. Your task is to pick one of these people, research their contribution to FOSS, and present it to the class. Consider ways that you could make your presentation interesting (visual aids, etc.). Use at least three sources (web is, of course, fine); you will turn in your citations. Target a 2-4 minute presentation.

In each instance, you've been provided with another factoid about the person so that you can insure you've found the right person.

• Linus Torvalds (named after Linus Pauling)
• Michael Tiemann (co-founded Cygnus Solutions)
• Brian Behlendorf (was a chief technology guru for the Burning Man festival)
• Bruce Perens (amateur radio call sign K6BP)
• Tim O'Reilly (born in County Cork, Ireland)
• Eric S. Raymond (contributed code and content to The Battle for Wesnoth)
• Richard Matthew Stallman (often known by his initials, rms)
• Guido van Rossum (worked at Zope Corporation)
• Paul Vixie (founded first anti-spam company, MAPS, which stood for “Mail Abuse Prevention System”)
• Eben Moglen (wrote a Metaphorical Corollary to Faraday's Law)
• Larry Wall (has a degree in Natural and Artificial Languages)

Deliverables:

Students will make a short presentation of their chosen FOSSers major contributions and turn in their list of sources.

Assessment:

Students can be graded on both the accuracy of the information that they present and whether their presentation is engaging. Consider a rubric such as the following (the weighting and point values may be varied based on the emphasis and level of the class; a history class might weight the research portion higher, while a cross-disclipinary class might rate the "engagement factor" higher, for example):

Criteria	Level 1	Level 2	Level 3	Level 4
Sources	None provided	At least 1, but fewer than 3 provided; or 3 provided but non-functional/relevant	3 sources provided; all relevant	More than 3 provided or 3 provided with notes as to why chosen
Bug 42984	Funny Noises	http://example.com/fakebug.enter_bug.cgi?product=fake&bug=42984	Bug submitted in 2010, patched in release 2 (2011)	Closed bug.

Comments:

This activity could be a good fit for a history or writing classes as well as computer science classes. In addition, if you have any cross-disciplinary classes, this would be an interesting project for them.

Suggestions for the Open Source Project:

It would be great if your project had information explaining why the project is licensed the way it is. If that information is available and you're willing to discuss it with students, that would make a really interesting (short) Skype or IRC chat.

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