Curious about being involved in open source, but haven't had the time to make the plunge? Involved with open source but a bit hazy on the way it all works? Open source legend [Andrew Tridgell][2] (rsync/samba) runs an annual week-long post-graduate level primer course ([COMP8440][1]), where he takes the time to share his exceptional wealth of open source experience and works to guide fresh-faced grads in to being members of the community. This talk will be conveying as much of this course as is possible in the time available, as seen through the eyes of a graduating student who was always keen about open source yet who hadn't made their first pull-requests until during this week, now, more than a year later, the presenter is actively involved in a bunch of cool open source projects. Exciting parts of the open source vault are opened, and some of the trusted favourites from history will be discussed, such as: - "what does '_open source_' mean anyway? (microsoft have some open source these days, right?)" - "what happens if someone steals and sells my open sourced code?" - and "as if anything bad will happen if I write my own license" The characteristics of the open source python community today will be looked at generally, with some guidelines for avoiding gotchas for existing projects. There will be specific step-by-step details about how to become involved and strategies for approaching all kinds of projects . The presenter will discuss the highs, the lows and unique sense of connection and achievement that can only be fulfilled by paying it forward to open source. [1]: http://cs.anu.edu.au/student/comp8440/index.php [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Tridgell