Task3 NIE - comparison of study plans

Last week I wrote how I made plans for my semester and chose the subjects to register in. This week I took a look on other students ways to plan their semester.

I chose some of the students I personally know and some randomly, so that I could hopefully see different things.

Jakob
Valeria
Maarja
Ottavio
Maris S

All of their schedules and especially descriptions of making their study plans are really different. Starting from Jakob, who has designed a really cool and enjoyable visual overview of his studyplan and how different elements were drawn from each other.
Two students (Maarja and Maris) have said that they needed to plan their studies in Estonia while actually being abroad most of the semester, this gives them different perspective of choosing the subjects and preferring online courses to those that have seminars for example every week and it would be compulsory to take part of them.
Maris seems to be different from the others also because she is not studying IMKE and she just needed to take 2 courses, but needed online ones so she could be in Prague while taking them. This certainly narrowed her choice making.
In overall I think that as we have all been studying in different universities, at least for 3 years now (I guess some of the first course IMKE master students might suit in this) it's not so much planning or problematic to register and plan the semester.

It would be nice if all of us would be really structurized and have strong plans of their subjects and views of what they want. But it's reality that most of the students first choose the subjects they really want and then also concentrate on the curriculum to make sure that they would fulfill all the requirements.
While writing Task 2 I started to think that would it be actually useful to teach students on how to plan their semester. Yes, we are all grown-ups and should know how to handle our duties, but what if there are really easy and creative ways to be able to handle all the school things and also remember homework. But many students form IMKE also have to consider often work duties that might come first eve if their interests would prefer some IMKE courses.

Google seems to be the tool center that everybody use. It's no surprise, as it allows to have many needed things in the same place (although the power that Google has is enormous - but this is already different subject :P).

Conclusion
My main critic looking at these plans, is that they are all made after all the registering and semester planning has been done. I am sure that most of the students started to think now how they would have handed better their semester study plans while actually doing it.
I really liked two visuals from Jakob and Valeria, they really do say much more than words. But at the same time Maarja has written really detailed overview, that could probably taken as an example how a student should handle his studies.

Task 2 NIE - How I should schedule my semester

This is my third year doing IMKE which means that I have to concentrate on getting the necessary amount of credit points – but also covering all needed modules in certain amount.

I had to consider what courses are availabe and complementary for me depending on IMKE 2008 curriculum.

Because last 3 years I have been working for a company in a position where it was really hard to do real timescheduling – many quick things came in several times a day and it was my responsibility to cover them. I am not really good at timescheduling anymore. I do those things that are burning already, and at the last minute.

Overall I use different tools to remember things I have to do.

Google tools – Google Calendar (it's good that IMKE schedule is also in Google calendar now, that allowed to copy it to my own calendar). All together I have 5 different calendars – personal, IMKE, work, team, to-do. I have managed to come up with my own system how to keep track of them.

With several calendars I use reminders with SMS and Email. For example with IMKE and personal calendar.

Google Bookmarks. I have also used other bookmarking tools before. Althought with most of them synchronizing can be done easily, I have still lost important bookmarks when changing computers. And I have had to do it several times this year for example. Therefore I planned now in September to keep at least all IMKE related bookmarks in Google Bookmarks.

Google mail. As I use Google calendar and some reminders, then Google mail is the central place that brings everything together.

As a phone I use Iphone and also it's calendar tht has been syncronized with iCal that again has been syncronized with Google calendar as well.

At the same time I am also kind of old-school and sometimes I need to see things in real, with handwritten in my real bookcalendar. I also tend to remember things much better that I write down with my hand. Otherwise I tend to forget tasks or even forget to check onine what tasks I needed to do – and doing those that I do remember currently.

I created a mindmap of how I scheduled my things for this semester. I have to be honest to say that I am taking week by week and know the basic things I have to manage every month, to be able to get as many needed subjects as possible.

OSM HM nr 5 - Wesnoth community

Wesnoth as a game and idea built together by different people all around the world has a strong community. The biggest and strongest part of it is the forum - it contains answers and ideas to many questions and gives a lot of support.
I can see that many members are active and often online - even the chat is handled well. Although the chat wasn't so easy to find.

Simple campaign
The forum provided information but also a really useful tool that our team used - Simple Campaign, with just one scenario, but it had explanations on the wiki pages as well.
Our team tried to find a real tutorial. Although the Simple Campaign that I mentioned above, provides us much help, it didn't answer many questions we had that seemed to be really basic.
There is a webpage Building campaign tutorial, but it has only firs step and second ones like First scenario and First custom unit have no date or guidelines.

If a new person goes to Wensoth page and finds the Create link he/she doens't get information on how to start the development, what are the first steps to actually understand how Wensoth works. I think this Create page should have simple and easy links to tutorials to get more people starting to understand the basis of Wesnoth and get familiar with it, without immediately starting bigger things.

I liked to work with Wensoth code and trying to understand how things work. But in several cases I couldn't find solutions of the ideas I had. Because it was a schoolwork I couldn't forget about it, but I had to continue research together with all the members in our team. But I would have really wanted to get a game creation tutorial, that would have helped me a lot to in the beginning.

Community of Wesnoth
Based on the information that I just wrote about the understanding in forums and not being able to find simple information to get me hooked to play the game or jump in to development I would say the community needs to get itself more open.
I am sure that "old members" don't have any difficulties finding the information they want and need. But today Wesnoth should also think about what to give to "newbies", those that don't have much patience to spend days on trying to figure out how the game goes. It's all about sharing information and building the environment that would create interest in visitors.
So between new developments of new version and scenarios of the Wesnoth game, a small team could spend some time on finishing the tutorials and thinking about making the feeling of the community more open and flexible.

Bugs on the page
This is not so much about the community itself but how frustrating it can be when Forum SEARCH doesn't work. And it happened so many times. We had to use "backdoor" in many occasions, insert searches to Wesnoth forums through Google help.
In this webpage where forum itself provides the most and best answers to questions visitors or users can have, search engine must work, and not provide error notice "try later".

OSM HM n 4 - It companies using Open Source as a part of their business

Many IT-companies use open source and free software in their everyday work. for example Open Source Streaming Servers, Firewall Builders to many different games.

1. Copyleft Solutions is a compay that provides support to uphold the supremacy of the open source software. They have various packages tailored to suit various kinds of IT needs in today's businesses. The company is situated in Pakistan ;)
This companies main issue seems to be giving support with open source software used by others - by phone and email.
According to their list, their highly trained engineers give quick support and find solutions with all these Open source:
Database servers - Linux, Sun Microsystems.
Fax servers - Joomla, Drupal,

2. Joomla - is a award winnign content management system which enables you to build Web sites and powerful online applications.
Their slogan is: ... because open source matters
Joomla Project is a community-based project with contributors from all over the world working in many different capacities.
There are 2 working groups: Production and Community. These groups utilize the wealth of knowledge our community provides. Each of these groups focuses on a specific aspect of Joomla essential to the project's growth and development.
To handle the production there is Leadership Team who governs the production and Board of Directors of OpenSource Matters.
They use GNU General Public License copyright.
Joomla webpage gives a short list of both their Vision and Key Values, but also about their mission with just one sentence.

In Leadership Team they have 14 people from different sides in the world.

3. SQL-Ledger is a double entry accounting/ERO system. Accounting data is stored in a SQL database server, for the display any text or GUI browser can be used. The ntire system is linked through a chart of accounts.
... so basically it's a accounting software from simpole accounting tools to handling POS devices and backups.
SQL-Ledger is developed under GNU General Public License.
Although the company works with open source and provides software under GNU GPL license, they are not so open for developing. They do have a forum, but it seems more for people who use the software itself, not so much for discussing developments.


***
I can see on our company how much information can be found with the help of Google. Until now I have not thought about under which license some parts of our webpage code is developed or server administration handled.
The fact is that with the help of accessing so much knowledge by different people through Internet all licensing becomes more and more difficult. Therefore I agree with a person that I citated in my last post - weak and no copyleft cases become more in common. The World is changing. As before people wanted to claim something as their own - it's no needed to get access to more information and get solutions quickly, everything can't be developed from the scratch. But if one wants to use other developments easily and freely with no issues of copyright legal issues, then this person also has to give out things on his own.

OSM HM nr 3 - Different copyleft cases from none to strong.

Copyleft comes from the idea of copyright. When the last phrase refers to the rights that a perosn has over something he/she has "invented" then copyleft is about giving the right to modify the work of someone else in order that the same is allowed for others as well.
Bit it's not so easy with copyleft, there are different levels in it. Sometimes some parts of the work can be modified an sometimes all.

1. Weak copyleft case is for example Mozilla Public License. With weak copyleft license person can make modifications to the work code and add additional settings to the code. But the person should not use parts of the code and only link to the original licensed code.
The most important thing in weak copyleft is that source code copied or changed under the MPL must stay under the MPL (Wikipedia, 2010)
With weak copyleft strong copyleft can't be used, as these criterias doesn't fit the main license rules.
Mozilla Public license is defined at Mozilla nonprofit organization page. Some examples of the softwares under MPL 1.1 license are: Bugzilla, Tinderbox, Bonsai.
Bugzilla is a server software designed to help manage software development. The soft itself helps to find bugs in developed software and handle server issues. At the same time the Bugzilla itself is developed by international volunteers who want to participate in making the version better and better to contribute their needs.
Weak copyleft

2. Strong copyleft case - GPL and GNU General Public License.
With strong copyleft license a person can incorporate code from projects licensed under the permissive license, or strong copyleft license under which software is licensed. It basically means that by using some code parts from GPL code, perosn ahs to agree and disribute hes/her own work under the same GPL license.
While using strong copyleft it's unlikely that someone else will use your code as a source of their work. Strong copyleft might end up in several legal issues.
A comment at 451 CAOS Theory, On the fall and rise of the GNU GPL syas that the strong copyleft is probably on the fall and weak one is on the rise. Especially because week copyleft gives a choice


3. No copyleft case - X11 license, Apache license and the BSD licenses.
This means that someone's work can be sued without the need to give something back to the community. No copyleft is supported by those who would like to become free from the legal restrictions and enjoy and use development made by different communities and people. With no copyleft one doesn't have to worry about any legal issues.
No copyleft should make it quicker and easier to use best solutions for everyone's work. At the same time it allows to distribute the outcome free or commercially. But the creators of original software creators still have to be credited ;)



Sources:
1. Copyleft law Tracking and analysying the key legal developments of the Internet Age. Licensing 101 for open source projects - Pick a license, part II.
2. Mozilla Public Linense Version 1.1 , 25. March
3. Wikipedia. Mozilla Public License , 26. march 2010
4. 451 CAOS Theory, On the fall and rise of the GNU GPL, 25. March 2010