How to Teach Undergrads How to Become Open Source Contributors Without Writing Any Code

This is the story of a college class taught inside an open source community. Last fall, I taught Release Engineering to a small group of undergraduates at Olin College, an engineering school a few miles outside Boston. The goal was to teach them how to become functional technical contributors to an open source project--without writing any code. In the hopes that others will be inspired to teach similar classes, I've written our experiences up as a case study in three pieces: cultural, technical, and "getting real."