Open Source Insider

Back to school with SUSE

Adrian Bridgwater
Adrian Bridgwater

We used to say: if you’re a developer, then you’re a full stack software application developer.

Then we moved on to say: all developers are essentially mobile developers because all applications today need to have some form of mobile deployment and (in many cases) mobile optimisation features as the rise of mobile-native apps took told.

It’s (obviously) the same story for cloud — hence the rise and popularisation of the term cloud-native.

What’s next then? Container-native is here… so should API-native be next.

Perhaps we should step back and just say open source native (well, look at what’s been happening at Microsoft after all).

German open source Linux-based product company SUSE (say: sou-suh) certainly hopes that open source native will be the way of things to come.

The company has now announced the growth of its SUSE Academic Programme — an initiative designed prepare student developers for all industries with open source knowledge, training materials and a low-cost education buying programme options.

400-strong

The programme spans more than 400 universities, schools, libraries and other academic institutions in the UK, North America and Europe and was founded in May of 2017.

Sander Huyts, SUSE vice president and academic programme lead points to the suggestion that the demand for open source skills is at an all-time high and increasing every year.

According to the Linux Foundation’s 2018 Open Source Jobs Report, hiring open source talent is a priority for 83 percent of hiring managers, an increase from 76 percent in 2017.

Phillip Chee, computer science technologist and professor at Fleming College in Peterborough, Ontario, said, “The materials provided in the SUSE Academic Programme are very impressive. I am using the programme to develop a lab for the students to install a small cloud and incorporating SUSE OpenStack Cloud into our operating system theory class.”

The SUSE programme has had an impact at the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, Czech Technical University, San Diego State University, New York City College of Technology and the University of British Columbia.