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| title | date | emoji | publishDate | bookmarkOf | references | summary | tags | |||||||||||||
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| Open Source Quality Institutes | 2024-04-03T07:43:01Z | 📐 | 2024-04-01T00:00:00Z | https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2024/04/01/OSQI |
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This is an inspiring (and well thought through) approach to a problem on a lot of folks’ minds after the XZ attack. |
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This is an inspiring (and well thought through) approach to a problem on a lot of folks’ minds after the XZ attack.
I wonder how this would actually come into reality though. It’s easy to justify “accept 0.1% of revenue”, but I think that’d get very challenging when looking internationally. The UK (should) care about Open Source maintainability enough to start an institute like this, but which companies could they squeeze to get the funding? Almost all large tech companies are (legally) based elsewhere.
Highlights
I propose the formation of one or more “Open Source Quality Institutes”. An OSQI is a public-sector organization that employs software engineers. Its mission would be to improve the quality, and especially safety, of popular Open-Source software.
there is a certain class of person who would find everyday joy in peeking and poking and polishing Open-Source packages that are depended on by millions of programmers and (indirectly) billions of humans.
it might make sense to structure OSQI as an educational institution; standalone or as a grad college
This would be excellent. Software “engineering” is missing an institute that demonstrates practical excellence in the way that structural engineering has had for a very long time.
University CompSci is very theoretical, and absolutely misses much of what it means to be a professional software engineer (as it should); an OSQI set up as an institute would be a superb place to have a rolling staff of inexperienced but dedicated graduates, who take the industry’s best practices out into the field.