Spring 2008: Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software

Term Offered: Spring 2008

Faculty Instructor: Ralph Morelli

Course Description:

Free and open source software (FOSS) is software that can be modified, customized, and redistributed by users and programmers. From its modest beginnings in the 1970s through the rapid growth of the Internet and the Linux operating system, today's open source software movement is a global enterprise involving hundreds of thousands of programmers working together on thousands of software programs. A growing number of FOSS programs have a humanitarian focus. In this course we will both learn about and contribute to a real open source project. We will work with the Sahana system, a crisis management system that was built in the aftermath of the Asian Tsunami. We will learn to write web-based application software using FOSS tools. Come and join the open source movement.

Materials
HFOSS Education and Development Wiki page for this course contains the following content:
 * Syllabus
 * Schedule
 * Notes
 * Assignments
 * Examples from the Text
 * Course Website
 * Paper Presentations
 * VMOSS Volunteer Registration and Management Guide