User:Roan

From Dokeos

I've been working on the Dokeos project since 2001, first at Ghent University, and now at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Free University of Brussels).

As a software developer, my main task is working on Dokeos - adapting it, improving the code, fixing bugs, adding a few new features - and supporting our local Dokeos installation, which is called Pointcarr� as homage to the scientist and philosopher Henri Poincar�.

Contents 1 Role in the team 2 My focus points 3 My workplace 4 My ToDo 5 My interests in Dokeos 6 Henri Poincar� 7 See also 8 Other interests

Role in the team

My role in the dokeos team is usually one of refactoring and improving, rather than introducing whizz-bang new features. I had a very traditional training as computer scientist (at Ghent University), and I'm busy combining these university lessons with real-world collaborative open-source development ideas to improve my skills. I'm one of the persons that has always insisted on improving the code, creating good code libraries, and reducing code duplication. Lately this has resulted in a big cleaning up effort of the code, creating and expanding many API libraries. This kind of work is never done, but I like to see the code getting cleaner.

This is ofcourse not "the best" role, but it's the one that I like to play. Other people play different roles and we complement each other, with the expected occasional conflict sometimes.

In the beginning (2003) I also managed the Dutch translation, but I've had little time for that in 2004. I often do things simply because nobody else is/was doing it: create a presentation to promote Dokeos, check code from forum contributors into the CVS, wrote the first developer and admin manual, organise meetings, package new releases, annoy developers who don't stick to some convention... ;-)

My focus points

• Code libraries (I started and/or contributed to the courses, database, display, document, group, main_api, file_xxx libraries)
• Good programming techniques: information hiding, refactoring, separation of gui - business logic - database code, uniform code template...
• Building and maintaining international development community.
• Good collaborative techniques: experimenting and using bug reporting tools, chat, cvs, email, forum, I also advised to set up this wiki :)
• To spread free software and promote freedom. The freedom for people to express themselves creatively and cooperate with each other, and the freedom from proprietary software by corporations that wish to restrict our freedoms just to make as much profit as possible.

My workplace

The education service center where I work is not just a "programmers club". We focus on service for education, and experimenting with new forms of education. Most people on my team are not programmers but have a more pedagogical training, which I like a lot since I feel a group of programmers left alone will not create good software. We try to promote good pedagogical practices. One of the things we want to do that I'm personally very interested in is opening all our Dokeos courses to the whole world. We see it as the job of a university to provide knowledge and learning to an entire society, not just that small fraction officially enrolled into the University. This would be similar to the Open Courseware project [1] of the MIT.

My ToDo

• User:Roan/ToDo
• writing a my view on release dates
• writing moving Dokeos forward
• experimenting with integrating a wiki (will post how to do this in the programming tutorial) or another forum inside Dokeos

My interests in Dokeos

Personally, I want Dokeos to be succesful because I like it and I believe that free software is better than closed, proprietary software. Better for practical and especially ethical reasons.

For the Free Software movement, non-free software is a social problem and free software is the solution.

Fear of Freedom

The main argument for the term "open source software" is that "free software" makes some people uneasy. That's true: talking about freedom, about ethical issues, about responsibilities as well as convenience, is asking people to think about things they might rather ignore. This can trigger discomfort, and some people may reject the idea for that. It does not follow that society would be better off if we stop talking about these things.

-- Free software for freedom

More info about me: Sourceforge skills profile

Henri Poincar�

Thinking must never submit itself, neither to a dogma, nor to a party, nor to a passion, nor to an interest, nor to a preconceived idea, nor to whatever it may be, if not to facts themselves, because, for it, to submit would be to cease to be.

This is the famous Poincar� quote that inspired the "Free" in the name "Free University of Brussels". It is a very interesting quote, but note that it is also a dogma in itself :-)

See also

• Copyleft: Pragmatic Idealism
• Free Java! - the GNU project is working on a free software Java compiler and free software java libraries.

Other interests

• I'm looking for a free software variant of Hypercard, an ancient but fantastic simple authoring tool for the masses, once distributed by Apple but now killed. I found two open source projects: Freecard looks very interesting, but unfortunately seems a dead project. And pythoncard is too difficult to install - no one on the hypercard user group has been able to install it...
• Human rights: I used to be busy with antiracism, now I'm mainly working on gender - gender identity and diversity.
• I'm also, which is linked to human rights, in favour of an alternative globalisation.