1. CoMETE is shining more and more FoSSA 2012
CoMETE is shining more and more
Didier COURTAUD & Judith BENZAKKI
Fossa Conference 2012didier.courtaud@univ-evry.fr & judith.benzakki@univ-evry.fr
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2. CoMETE is shining more and more FoSSA 2012
Plan
Introduction
CoMETE
Evolutions
CoMETE side effects
Conclusion
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3. CoMETE is shining more and more FoSSA 2012
Introduction
Fossa Conference 2012
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4. CoMETE is shining more and more FoSSA 2012
FOSS is everywhere
FOSS has spread into all computer applications and devices
Technical ones : Routers, Cloud servers, ...
Hidden ones : Set Top boxes, Car computers
Very well known ones : Smartphones
FOSS market becomes more and more important (INSEE France 2011)
The FOSS market is about 2,5 G€ ( 6 % of the total market )
21% of the companies use a Free OS and 43 % use Free Office Suite
FOSS is now used by everybody
SMEs
Public adminstrations
Big companies
Fossa Conference 2012 1/12
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5. CoMETE is shining more and more FoSSA 2012
FOSS and Education
There is an important lack of formations to FOSS technologies and ecosystems
New methodologies to develop software
New ways of collaboration
Universities must learn FOSS technologies
Important for the students
To study how to develop these softs in collaboration
To find jobs
Important for the University
A way to contribute to innovation
A way to attract students
Important for France
France is the first contributing country for FOSS in Europe
French engineers must be active in the development of major FOSS
projects
Fossa Conference 2012 2/12
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6. CoMETE is shining more and more FoSSA 2012
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7. CoMETE is shining more and more FoSSA 2012
CoMETE
Fossa Conference 2012
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8. CoMETE is shining more and more FoSSA 2012
The CoMETE project
In 2009, we created the CoMETE project to initialize a FOSS cursus
CoMETE stands for Course on Mozilla Education and Technology
The goals of the project were
To learn the students all the technologies and methods used by the Mozilla
Foundation to create their products in order
they can contribute to these products
they can use these technologies in the companies where they work
To create online educationnal ressources
Fossa Conference 2012 3/12
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9. CoMETE is shining more and more FoSSA 2012
CoMETE contents
A theoretical course
Given by instructors of the Mozilla Foundation
Equivalent of one week spread over a month
A practical project
Real subjects given by the Mozilla community and by companies
40 hours / 3 Months
Managed as a real FOSS project
The student is the Project Lead
He/She is followed by a Project Referee from the Community and a
Project Referee from the University
He/She manages his/her project
Creation of a blog and a wiki to explain what they develop and how
and to communicate with other contributors
Regular milestones where they publish intermediate releases
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10. CoMETE is shining more and more FoSSA 2012
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11. CoMETE is shining more and more FoSSA 2012
Projects results and student first feedbacks
The project results are fairly good
Most of the projects are reusable that is someone else can finish the work
A few have failed to produce something that can be reused
But a few produced soft directy usable in FOSS products like Thunderbird or
Nightingale
The first feedbacks of the students
It is wonderful to develop for real software used by many people
People of the community are so gentle with us even if we are newbies
It is an exciting new way to develop software in cooperation
Fossa Conference 2012 5/12
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12. CoMETE is shining more and more FoSSA 2012
Evolutions
Fossa Conference 2012
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13. CoMETE is shining more and more FoSSA 2012
Courses
First courses focused on technologies for making extensions to Firefox or Gecko
based applications
But we want to stay in touch with the new developments of the Mozilla Foundation
That is why this year, we decided with the Mozilla Foundation to switch to Web
Applications development
More user friendly for the students
But more ready to the market (FirefoxOS Market Place)
At the beginning, instructors were pure Mozilla employees
It is important for students to be instructed by professionnals
Nowadays, all the French Mozilla Community wants to help
Not yet in courses but greatly in projects
Fossa Conference 2012 6/12
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14. CoMETE is shining more and more FoSSA 2012
Projects
We began with the paradigm : one student = one project
To make the student responsible of his/her project
Even if cooperation was encouraged ( and taken into account in the final
evaluation ! )
But students claimed to work as a team
They are afraid to be alone against the whole community
The first level of help is always their colleagues
We have observed that they do not use IRC enough : they do not dare !
They want to investigate themselves in bigger projects
We also want
To propose longer projects : all over the year
To propose new projects more oriented to research
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15. CoMETE is shining more and more FoSSA 2012
Projets ( II )
This year, we have organized the projects as follows
One project = A team of 2 to 3 students
The students make two projects : a Research one and a Web Application one
The two projects can be combined to make a longer project
The Mozilla community has greatly participated to the definition of the projects
List of projects
All the projects are managed with Git and Github
The evaluation is no more done through a paper report
It is directly done through the Github site of the project
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16. CoMETE is shining more and more FoSSA 2012
CoMETE side effects
Fossa Conference 2012
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17. CoMETE is shining more and more FoSSA 2012
Mozilla Family
What we have observed during these three years :
After a shy beginning, Mozilla employees and contributors have come physically at
the University more often
to talk with the students
to help the students
to show and promote new developments of the Foundation ( we have seen the
very first version of Firefox OS )
Nowadays students feel comfortable to work with the Mozilla community because
of this presence
They have the feeling to belong to the Mozilla Family
Fossa Conference 2012 9/12
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18. CoMETE is shining more and more FoSSA 2012
Students
Introduction of this FOSS cursus has completely changed the vision of FOSS for
students
Those who participate to the CoMETE project say they make a discovery and
that it changes the way they see the computer science
Those who know the existence of this cursus at the University want to
participate in any manner
A student non-profit organization has been set up at the University to help
students install Linux and use FOSS
Students dare says they work on Linux and use FOSS for their daily job
Students from other Universities candidate for coming to Evry because of CoMETE
Fossa Conference 2012 10/12
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19. CoMETE is shining more and more FoSSA 2012
Conclusion
Fossa Conference 2012
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20. CoMETE is shining more and more FoSSA 2012
Conclusion
In the sky of FOSS, CoMETE is approching the Sun
The cursus is now well establish in the program of the MIAGE
More students are participating ( and will participate ) to the projects
The scope of the projects is enlarging to research
Other Universities ( and aspecially other MIAGE ) want to organize such a
course
FOSS spirit flows inside the student community
They do not hesitate to ask for FOSS solution for any problem
At any level, they ask me how to participate to FOSS projects
Fossa Conference 2012 11/12
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21. CoMETE is shining more and more FoSSA 2012
Questions
We will be pleased to answer all your questions
Judith BENZAKKI ( judith.benzakki@univ-evry.fr )
Didier COURTAUD ( didier.courtaud@univ-evry.fr )
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