1 / 10

On how a PhD Student is contributing to research, but not founding it: a parabole with Open Source Software

On how a PhD Student is contributing to research, but not founding it: a parabole with Open Source Software. Alejandro Hernandez Technical University of Denmark PhD Association. About me:. Born in Rosario (Argentina) Computer Scientist (National University of Rosario)

kristy
Download Presentation

On how a PhD Student is contributing to research, but not founding it: a parabole with Open Source Software

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. On how a PhD Student is contributing to research, but not founding it:a parabole with Open Source Software Alejandro Hernandez Technical University of Denmark PhD Association

  2. About me: • Born in Rosario(Argentina) • Computer Scientist (National University of Rosario) • Experience as Software Engineer in the Industry • TA jobs for several years • PhD from The Technical University of Denmark (DTU) • Work for the DTU PhD Association (and PhD-Nettet): • Board member (2010-present) • President (2011) • Delegate towards Eurodoc (2012) • Fields of expertise: • Embedded-software, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Formal Methods (Formal verification, model checking, static analysis), Information Security, Algorithms Design

  3. On software licences: • Propietary: • You can only use the software the way it’s intended by the creator. • Can’t change it, can’t re-distribute it, can’t reverse engineer it, can’t even sell it! • Open source: • GPL, BSD, FreeBSD • Generally, you can take a piece of software and understand/modify/re-distribute it. • There might be some restrictions as well…

  4. Pasteur’s quadrant (1) • Does the research follow a quest for basic/fundamental understanding? • fundamental/basic research • driven by essence of things instead of applications • Does the research consider some uses? • intended useful outcome • driven by everyday needs

  5. Pasteur’s quadrant (2)

  6. Innovation analogy • Does the software licensing follow a quest for free distribution? • software to be improved by others • creator wants to be “famous“ among colleagues • Does the software creator consider some selling goals? • software cannot be adapted by anybody else • creator wants to earn money with creation

  7. Examples of innovators • Bill Gates • created what people needed • didn’t want others to change it • Linus Torvalds • created something with the purpose of learning • shared for getting feedback • Ulf Michael (Monty)Widenius • created a “state of the art”technology for databases, people needed this • open source aiming at getting even better technology • sold creation to Sun

  8. “Monty’s” quadrant

  9. About a PhD student • They are (young) researchers -> must fall in some quadrant (original, not analogy) • Edison’s? • attacking application problems using some already-done fundamental research • Borh’s? • “small” fundamental questions can be attacked • Pasteur’s? • limited time, so difficult to do fundamental research aimed at obtaining applications • aiming at answering fundamental questions that lead to direct applications is not always feasible (analogy: Monty is “one in thousands”)

  10. Conclusion • Research can be analogous to innovation • PhD Students have to carefully choose their topic • Proprietary software might progress faster than open source. Analogously, applied research tends to be more manageable than basic. • Some extra comments: • PhD studies are limited time, but these have several implications for future of PhD student • pursuing PhD studies (analogous to) working in Open community • PhD can be done to improve oneself (then go to industry) • Some others, might pursue further research, perhaps then being able to fall in Pasteur’s quadrant… 

More Related