[Freegis-list] On the links between FOSS developers and theacademia

[Jan-Oliver Wagner]

Michael,

On Thu, Aug 18, 2005 at 01:29:44PM +0200, michael gould wrote:
> Jan,  Some university programs focus on employment, and for them it's
> important the students know the most popular software...usually proprietary.
> Others focus on concepts...with the idea that the students should know --as
> you say--- the alternatives available, and that to get a job done the brand
> name is not so important.

I hope _any_ university tagets good chances for employment of their
students ;-)
The target employers may differ though.

In Germany with have in theory the concept of universities and
polytechnics. The latter give a more close-to-commercial-practice
education while universities concentrate on conceptual thinking.
A ESRI product training might be OK for polytechnics, but not for
a university.
Well, in real life unfortunately many universities turned
to mono-product training as well believing that they are more
attractive for students this way (and more attractive
for the government to give them money).

> For our computer science students *using* GIS is
> not very interesting; they prefer to --and do-- program their own solutions.
> This is FAR easier now that important libraries and components are available
> (foss), than was the case a decade ago. In that sense I don't see how foss
> develpers and academia could collaborate more...things are pretty open and
> fluid from what I can see.
> 
> Our students collaborate directly with the gvSIG foss project. In fact,
> instead of keeping them around after graduation, as a sort of temporary
> research associate (with uncertain future), I have been turning them loose
> to work for/with the government agency and contracted company which are
> producing gvSIG.

I can only recommend to study at Michael's university where
the right spirit lives :-)

Best

	Jan
-- 
Jan-Oliver Wagner               http://intevation.de/~jan/
Intevation GmbH                      http://intevation.de/
Kolab Konsortium               http://kolab-konsortium.de/
FreeGIS                                http://freegis.org/