Considerations regarding the creation of a post-graduate master’s degree in free software

Abstract

Free software has gained importance over the last few years, and can be found in almost any sphere in which ‘software processes’ are important. However, even when universities and higher education establishments include subjects concerning free programming and technologies in their curriculums, their graduates tend to attain limited technological, organisational and philosophical knowledge that limits them as regards their participation in, management and development of free software projects. This gap in skills and knowledge has recently led to a series of post-graduate studies whose objective is to offer students the possibility of acquiring competencies that will allow them to become experts in free software. This paper presents a study concerning the offers for post-graduate studies in free software that currently exist, with the intention of creating similar post-graduate studies in Ecuador.