This page is kept for historical purposes only. Please see the home page for my current situation. —Luca Saiu.

Luca Saiu - Teaching - Free software course (2007)

Information about the rattrapage is now available here.

This course is a general introduction to the main themes of free software and open source, covering themes of technical, historical and philosophical interest.
Due to time constraints many topics are only touched in passing, and pointers to other resources are provided instead.

In order to make students know at least some of the tools in widespread use in the free software community I also present at least one particularly influential free software project in each lesson.
Despite being a necessity dictated by the impossibility to illustrate all interesting examples, such a kind of judgement is inherently subjective; when forced to choose I tend to give precedence to some topics with a deep significance for Computer Science which I deem unjustly neglected (hence my choice of dedicating one lecture to Lisp by teaching the basics of the Scheme programming language), or software systems with a particularly beautiful and inspiring internal architecture (like Emacs and X, whose inner workings can and should serve as examples).

You can contact me for any question or comment. I appreciate feedback.

News

Some students have asked me some pointers about how to use GNU/Linux from the command line. Here are my suggestions.
2008-02-06: The written exam questionnaire and its commented solution are available.
The exam has been re-scheduled in order to comply with the legal requirement of announcing the exam date at least 15 days in advance.
You can still choose a ten-minutes oral exam (I will speak English; you can speak French if you want but I must be able to understand you), xor a 90-minutes multiple-choice written exam in French. The difficulty will be the same, and in either case I will keep into account good submissions for the optional part.
You have to subscribe at the secretariat (or in room D203? is it the same room? I don't know. Well, I think they'll tell you) on Tuesday 2008-01-29, in the morning (from 9.00 to 12.00).
- The written exam is scheduled for:
  - Tuesday 2008-01-29 from 13.45 to 15.15 at C102
- The oral exams are scheduled for:
  - Tuesday 2008-01-29 from 15.30 to 18.00 at B105
  - Wednesday 2008-01-30 from 15.30 to 18.00 at C216
  - Thursday 2008-01-31 from 12.00 to 13.30 at B105
  - Friday 2008-02-01 from 13.45 to 15.15 at C216
Please bring with you your student card and an identity document.
2008-01-08: The final information about examinations is online.
2007-11-23: I've put online the final TP web page. Please also read the information about it.
2007-11-21: Please read the information about the final "long" TP.
2007-11-16: I've just discovered that the original document I was linking for the Scheme turorial Teach yourself Scheme in fixnum days has become unreachable. I've updated the link, and now it should work.
2007-11-15: for students: notwithstanding the possible strike ("grève") I will be present tomorrow. Do you think you will come? I can schedule two extra lessons later (lab session for Scheme (2/2), and another for the non-practical part) if you don't show up, but I'd prefer to avoid this so that you have time to prepare yourself for this and your other exams, without the hurdle of extra unplanned lessons.
2007-11-11: I've put online the questionnaires' solutions:
- SURVEY (text, 9Kb)
- TP (text, 5Kb)
2007-11-01: Here (PDF, 88Kb) is the full text of the GNU General Public License version 3 which I distributed. Some students couldn't get it on paper because I didn't have enough copies; I apologize to them.
You can also find the GPL text in other formats here.

Final "long" TP [2007-11-23 update: the final TP web page is online]

The final TP will be divided in several sessions, totaling six hours per group. Due to the good amount of time available I've prepared a larger project, much more interesting than the thing I was anticipating before. Of course the same rule continues to hold: any negative result in a TP does not contribute to evaluation; but, particularly in this case (because of the relatively large size of the project), good results will yield a bonus.

The project will consist in modifying an existing free software system I will provide, written in the C language. It will be a somewhat simplified simulation of what may happen in the real free software community.

Some knowledge of the Scheme dialect of Lisp (the one I introduced in the first lesson) will also be required - of course I don't require anyone to become a master Scheme programmer: but please review your notes on Lisp before coming; if you don't have notes or you were not present at the first lesson then please learn at least the basics of Scheme from the resources linked below. Of course I will answer questions, but I won't have time to re-explain Lisp from scratch.

I understand that different students have widely varying levels of experience: to allow both beginners to learn by doing something interesting and experts to creatively express themselves in daring endeavors, I've designed the TP to consist in completing one or more tasks, chosen from a list by each students or group; I will also happily accept reasonable suggestions for other tasks which I have not anticipated: the system I will provide lends itself to be extended in many ways.

Each task has different requirements and different difficulty, explicitly stated: all the needed information will be available online.

Students will (optionally, of course) submit their solutions to me by e-mail.

Requirements for the final TP

The only abilities absolutely required for the TP are:

decent programming ability with C
very superficial knowledge of Scheme
at least a minimal familiarity with the use of a Unix-like system (of course we're going to use GNU/Linux)

Some individual tasks need a deeper understanding of these (and other) matters; but, keeping in mind the survey answers, I've tried to design tasks appropriate for everyone.

Documentation will be provided to explain step-by-step some typical operations which inexperienced students might not know of (for example, how to uncompress and compile a project distribute as source code); I will provide scripts or Makefiles to automate most "uninteresting" operations.

Slides and course diary

I try to make slides available one or two days before each lesson.
All my slides are in ODF format, easily accessible from reasonably recent versions of the OpenOffice.org suite. Presentations are available here as gzipped tarballs.
The Ogg/Theora videos (typically screencasts) I show in class are also available.

2007-10-26 - 1 - History of the Free Software and Open Source movements
History of the free software and open source movements: 1-history.tar.gz (2344 Kb)
User-extensible applications: screencast demo of my glyphify-mode for GNU Emacs: funny-glyphs.ogg (1.5Mb). Emacs is the canonical example, and probably the first one, of an extensible application.
User-extensible applications: LOGOS running on NAUSEA: nausea-logos.ogg (2.7Mb). Another very visual example of an extensible application. The application logic is expressed with only ~500 lines of Scheme.
The Scheme dialect of Lisp: on the blackboard .
2007-10-26 - A - Scheme (1/2)
Exercises with GNU Guile: Practical session
2007-11-01 - 2 - Copyright, licenses and free software
Copyright and basics of copyright licenses: on the blackboard
Copyright, software licenses and free software: 2-licenses.tar.gz (1200 Kb)
X: short live demo
Handout: the GNU General Public License version 3 (PDF, 88Kb).
2007-11-09 - 3 - Free software development: practice and tools
Questionnaire (here is the solution)
Another questionnaire about the next 3-hour computer session (here is the solution)
Copyright, software licenses and free software: 3-development.tar.gz (3900 Kb)
GNU Emacs: short live demo
Web tools for collaborative development: GNU Savannah savannah.ogg (5.4Mb).
Web tools for collaborative development: Bugzilla bugzilla.ogg (2.4Mb).
Mailing lists in free software development.
2007-11-16 - A - Scheme (2/2)
Exercises with GNU Guile: Practical session
2007-11-16 - 4 - Bits and pieces
Some more history, and an anticipation of what will come in the final lesson.
I've tried to make this lesson very "lightweight", in consideration of the strike; the remaining important topics will be covered in the final lesson.
2007-xx-xx - 5 - Threats to free software (and not only)
[to be prepared]
This is not required for the exam.
2007-xx-xx - B - Final lab sessions (six hours) (1/2)
Writing and modifying free software: Practical session
2007-xx-xx - B - Final lab sessions (six hours) (2/2)
Writing and modifying free software: Practical session
~~2008-01-18, 8.30..10.00~~ - Written examination
~~from 2008-01-21 to 2008-01-25, 12.00..13.30~~ - Oral examinations

Exams [updated on 2008-01-10]

As I had promised, I will make oral sessions for all students who prefer this solution. However, since there is a lot of students and some have said to have problems with English, I also offer the possibility of a written multiple choice examination, in French.

Each student is free to choose one modality (the difficulty is the same):

Written examination ~~on Friday 2008-01-18, from 8.30 to 10.00~~. It will be a multiple-choice questionnaire in French.
Oral examinations in the week from Monday 2008-01-20 to Friday 2008-01-25, from 12.00 to 13.30. Each session will last less than ten minutes. Students can speak French, but of course I have to understand what they say.

Of course what I have previously said about optional bonuses continues to hold. Good submitted solutions to the final TP and presentations will yield a bonus on the final mark; but the written or oral examination is compulsory for everybody.

General notes

Also in consideration of the fact that we communicate in English, I'll be completely satisfied if a student shows me to have understood two thirds of what I say in class, but recalling just the main points of each lecture is enough to pass (of course not with the maximum mark in this case).

Computer sessions (TPs) are meant as practical exercises for students, and any possible negative outcome will not contribute to evaluation. I want students to freely ask me questions during TPs without any fear of being judged for this.

Remembering minute details such as dates or exact definitions is not required.

Optional "bonuses": solutions to the final TP and presentations

The written or oral exam is required for everybody, but in addition to that students can optionally submit me their solutions to the final TP (by sending me the compressed sources of their modified nanolisp; submitting more than one version is ok, since many students had to work on different nanolisp versions because of setup problems in the TP rooms), or make a presentation. If their work is good they will get a bonus on their final mark.

I've received very few nanolisp submissions. If you think you've done something nice then send me your solution (only compressed sources, please).
Two students have already shown me a presentation about X.
Two other students (I don't have their names: the two female students who were on the front row during the last TP, who said they had problems with English) were also interested in making a presentation.
If they are still interested they can contact me to fix an appointment for their presentation; or they can also do it during their oral sessions, if they choose the oral modality and their presentation is very short.
Any other students who want to make a presentation about some interesting free software project, or on some phisolophical or juridical aspect related to free software can contact me.

Of course students can contact me for any question about the exam, or about anything which was covered in the course.

More resources

Here I provide some resoruces for interested students who want to get a deeper understanding.

I appreciate personal enquiry, and take it into account as a bonus for the final evaluation.

Free software philosophy and history

If you have little time I recommend to read at least Why software should not have owners, by Richard Stallman.

The GNU Project web site.
Free Software, Free Society: the selected essays of Richard M. Stallman.
Philosophy of the GNU Project. A large collection of articles about the free software movement.

Open Source

I recommend The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric Raymond.

The Open Source Initiative web site.
A collection of papers by Eric Raymond.

Lisp

I think everybody should at least try the SICP video lectures. Watch them when you have some time.

The Lisp Wikipedia article. This deals with the whole family of languages, which includes Scheme.
The Scheme Wikipedia article.
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs ("SICP"), by Abelson and Sussman (the full text is online). This is a very beautiful textbook about languages and programming, which also uses and teaches Scheme. Some parts may look simple for Master students, but despite being easy to read this text is surprisingly deep.
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs - video lectures: a full course of twenty lectures given by Abelson and Sussman in 1986, teaching Scheme and many other things. Enlightening.
Teach yourself Scheme in fixnum days is a good Scheme tutorial. I recommend this to students whose interest was captured by my explaination and now want to have a better practical knowledge of the language. It doesn't need a big effort.
2007-11-16: I've just discovered that the original document I was linking is now unreachable. I've updated the link, and now it should work.
Recursive Functions of Symbolic Expressions and Their Computation by Machine (Part I), John McCarthy, 1960 (!). The original article on Lisp, with the original notation. An absolute must-read for anyone interested in languages.
Transcript of Richard Stallman's speech at the 2002 International Lisp Conference: about the early Lisp Machines history.
If you like Scheme you will surely be interested in the original Lambda Papers (1975-1980) by Guy Steele and Gerald Sussman. They're deep but written in an informal style, quite a pleasure to read.

Extension languages

The GNU Guile home page also deals with the general idea of extension languages.
This old article by Stallman (1981) contains some historical curiosities on Emacs and discusses the idea of an extensible program at length.

Emacs

The GNU Emacs home page also contains a web tutorial which can be useful for starting to use Emacs.
The GNU Emacs manual is very complete and well-written.
Emacs features are mostly implemented in Emacs Lisp, a Lisp dialect different from the one I've shown in the course, but however easy to learn. The GNU Emacs Lisp reference manual is its complete documentation, but I suggest to start from An introduction to Programming in Emacs Lisp, by Bob Chassel.

X

The X Window System Wikipedia article is very good, and contains other pointers.

GCC

The GCC home page is a good starting point for understanding GCC. GCC internals are extremely complex, but you can try.

Copyright and licenses

The Copyright Wikipedia article
The French copyright law Wikipedia article is very good; unfortunately, and curiously, it seems to be only available in English.
Comments on many popular free software and non free software licenses.
Added on 2007-11-26, following a question by a student: What copyleft is, from the GNU web site.

Development methodologies

These are not necessarily related to free software, but they're a very instructive reading.
I admit that this selection is biased towards Lisp.

The famous series of articles about worse is better by Richard Gabriel.
Paul Graham is another fine essayist who has plenty of interesting things to say about programming.
I recommend his Revenge of the Nerds to language freaks like me.

Hacker culture

This is light reading.

The Jargon File, edited by Eric Raymond (hence not written from a free software perspective).
I particularly recommend Appendix A: The story of Mel (here are some annotations which may be helpful for inexperienced readers).
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution (ISBN 0-385-19195-2), by Stephen Levy, 1984, Anchor Press/Doubleday. I don't know whether a French translation exists.

Back to my home page...

Luca Saiu
Last modified: 2008-02-28