Week 7: Oct. 8th Open source selections

This week, we held a mini-conference on Open Source Software. There was one person I would like to mention especially, this person was Chris. Yes, I was amazed by his presenting different roles (three researchers and one moderator). He really did a great job!

I, as a researcher from China, Guohua Pan, Dr. Bonk (presenting himself), and Nunthika (presenting Curt Bonk) were the speakers in Conference Session #3, The Movement of Open Source from North America to China. Chris was the Moderator of this session. This experience is really like opening a Pandora’s box to me. Presenting a researcher is totally new; responding to questions and communicating with each other are new as well.

To tell the truth, because it was my second month in America, I could hardly imagine that I would be able to perform well in this kind of topic seminar (a simulated seminar). What I could do was to do my best. When I found that I couldn’t use 4 to 5 minutes to summarize my article, I felt nervous since that meant the only chance to let others understand was through answering questions. In this experience, I understood following things. First, as a researcher, I should always be responsible to the definition of the theme of my article. Although Pan’s paper was not a technical one, I believed that he knows how to define Open Source Software very well. Second, it’s a little bit hard for me to differentiate by those similar sounds words. I heard the question is “What do you do find open-source?” But actually, Chris asked me about “What do you define open-source?” It was believed that listening a lot from idioms and slams may help me differentiate those similar sounds. Third, the best way to perform well in seminar would be absorbing articles and conveying them in my words.

To some extent, I believe that planning of development and construction led by government is good especially when strength or resources of the market are not sufficient enough. Besides, constructing a platform by government might help stakeholders gather their human brains to perform well and avoid time wasting on compromising with others especially when the external environment like the standardization and regulations are not structured well. Samsung Inc. is a good example. “South Korean President, Park Chung-Hee’s regime during the 1960s and 1970s helped Samsung Electronics and many other Korean firms…His government banned several exterior companies selling consumer electronics in South Korea.” (wikipedia: Samsung Group) “To make up for a lack of technological expertise in South Korea, the South Korean government effectively required foreign telecommunications equipment manufacturers to hand over advanced semiconductor technology in return for access to the Korean market.” (Samsung Electronics)

The development of Open Source Software is exactly similar as Samsung group’s development in China. China has millions of brilliant human brains working together on improving Open Source Software. But in my observation, due to the regulations of information conveyance and delivering, people in China strived for a platform to freely organize their intelligence. Chinese Government plays an important and controlling role both in the progress of democracy and developing industry. Pan stated “Open Source Software is also viewed as an opportunity for China to utilize millions of talented individuals in its quests to develop it own brand of copyrighted software to combat the monopoly of Microsoft in China’s software market.” “The Chinese government’s enthusiasm for open source software is based on reasons of lower cost since no requiring licenses, and benefits to the local industry and higher education. (Guohua Pan, 2007) (I dismissed the third reason stated in the paper. It was intriguing to see descriptions about some kinds of country ideology in a technological or scientific academic paper. May be because it was published in China and it might be needed to try to obtain Chinese Government’s good feeling.) “The open-source software development did not find its way into China until 1999 when Red Flag Software Corporation released Red Flag Linux 1.0.” “The success of open-source software in China is closely linked to a Linux operating system branded under the Red Flag name developed and distributed at the software Research Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences.” I was interested in how and why Red Flag Software Corporation would release Red Flag Linux 1.0 in 1999 even though it might be thought as a political issue. I believed that various culture, political situation, and social development affecting different developmental ways in every specific sphere. We may wait and see the potential and enormous demands for online learning in China through open-source software.

It was also worth to mention that the “Free software Song” brought by Evern. I love the song so much and that day was the happiest day I guess. I can nearly see the innovation of Hippies by that song. It also needed to put my praise on Dr. Kim’s presentation on “In Praise of Sharing” because I can see his preparation and determination on it. I understood the difference between copyright and copyleft that is based on the relatively new view, the pure property emphasizing the essentiality of sharing (software). Though it was apparent that there is some problem of pure property in Higher Education setting, James L. Hilton, the author of this paper still suggest to activate file sharing. Here is a good quote, “Colleges and Universities will thrive to the extent that they foster innovation and the free exchange of ideas. If we want to preserve innovation, we have to begin asking how we can share, rather than how we can protect.” Toru Iiyoshu at al also stated a logical extension about sharing makes learning visible. For owning those open-source software nowadays, I really want to appreciate the Founders of Open Source. This week’s themes are a kaleidoscope of gorgeous perspectives that is really interesting to me!



Reference:

Pan, G., & Bonk, C. J. (2007, March). The Emergence of Open-Source Software, Part II: China. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. 8(1). See http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/331/762; special issue on the “Changing Faces of Open and Distance Learning in Asia” is found at http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/
Pan, G., & Bonk, C. J. (2007, September). The Emergence of Open-Source Software, Part I: North America. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. 8(3). See http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/issue/view/26
Pan, G., & Bonk, C. J. (2007). A socio-cultural perspective on free and open source software. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning. See http://www.itdl.org/Journal/Apr_07/article01.htm
Iiyoshi, T., Richardson, C., & McGrath, O. (2006). Harnessing open technologies to promote open educational knowledge sharing. Innovate 3 (1). Retrieved October 19, 2006, from http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=339
Hilton, J. L. (2005). In praise of sharing. EDUCAUSE Review, 40(3), 72-73. Also available at: http://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm05/erm053.asp
Samsung Group, Retrieved Oct.15, 2007 from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung